Director Report Card: Joss Whedon (2013)

3. Much Ado About Nothing

If you're reading this, you already know the story behind Joss Whedon's “Much Ado About Nothing.” Periodically, Whedon has had gatherings at his home. He'd get some actors from his various shows together and, simply for the fun of it, they would read Shakespeare. (This same ritual would also give birth to “Once More with Feeling,” the much lauded musical episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”) Whedon's house is apparently quite nice and he's been wanting to shoot a movie there for a while. During the post-production of “The Avengers,” Whedon had several weeks of mandated vacation time. Suddenly, all these interest came together. He quickly shot an adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing” in his own home, in secret, largely with actors he's known and been friends with for years. The film rolled out in 2013.

Assuming you didn't read this one in high school English or drama class, here's the plot of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Don Pedro returns home after a successful journey abroad. He brings along old friends Benedick and Claudio. Beatrice – niece of their host, Leonato – does not think very highly of Benedick. The two begin verbally sniping at each other immediately. Don Pedro falls for Hero, Leonato's daughter, and decides to marry her. Benedick thinks this is a bad idea. For his own amusement, Pedro and his friends concoct a plot to make Benedick and Beatric fall in love with each other. Meanwhile, Don John – Pedro's brother – arrives to create his own scheme to ruin his more successful brother's life.

I like to think I'm sort of smart. At the very least, I like to learn. However, even speaking as an English major, I've never quite been able to get Shakespeare. The stories and archetypes are iconic, obviously. They've resonated through history for a reason. The actual act of reading or seeing Shakespeare performed is very different. Unless you have a book of annotations in your lap, trying to decipher the meanings and exact wordplay of Shakespeare's prose is challenging. Watching a Shakespeare film, at least one that keeps the original words, is a lot like watching a film in a foreign language without subtitles.

Unless you've studied the Bard and really grasp every nuances of his writing and style, you don't watch Shakespeare be performed the same way you'd watch any other movie or play. So instead of being about the story or the dialogue, it's about the small stuff. You learn to appreciate the conversations you do understand, the filmmaker's take on the standard plots, the amusing moments in-between actors. Compared to big, dramatic narratives like “Romeo & Juliet,” “Hamlet,” or “MacBeth,” “Much Ado About Nothing” is a play with a lot more moving parts. You've got subplots and schemes playing out alongside everything else. This is the reason it's not filmed as often as those other plays. Which makes the material even harder to approach.

So let's consider “Much Ado About Nothing” within the Joss Whedon canon. In the run-up to the film's release, the director shared some of the reasons why the play appeals to him. He talked about how our notions of love are created by the pressure of society. How growing outside of that limitations is how we find true love. Romantic relationship, and the tangles they create, are certainly a reoccurring theme across Whedon's TV shows. (Not his movies so much.) As is the self's struggle for independence and idealization against societal pressures. Not to mention the guy likes bickering and bantering within ensembles. So it's easy to see why he chose “Much Ado About Nothing,” instead of “Timon of Athens” or whatever.

As far as I can tell, “Much Ado About Nothing” was basically the first romantic-comedy, at least how we think of the term in a modern sense. Funny shenanigans ensue as two people go on a journey from hating each other to loving each other. You've seen that story play out a hundred times before. Shakespeare even foresaw the genre's need to have a ridiculously, and unnecessarily, evil bad guy. Despite the obvious influences “Much Ado About Nothing,” as a text, had on the medium, it also has stuff nobody thinks about. Stuff that is tonally out-of-place from a modern perspective. Like the weirdly maudlin shift in the story after Claudio leaves Hero at the alter. Obviously things where different in Shakespeare time but it's odd, from a modern perspective, for a light-hearted comedy to feature a funeral.

You're notice I'm talking more about Shakespeare's “Much Ado About Nothing,” instead of Whedon's “Much Ado About Nothing.” There's an obvious reason for that. Whedon did not really change the script very much before filming it. He condensed it a bit, combined a few characters, changed a line of dialogue here or there. He also, ostensibly, moves the story into the modern day. So you have suits and dresses, instead of tights and gowns. Police officers with guns, instead of constables with swords. The sexual interaction that was only hinted is now a lot steamier. Still, this is an adaptation in a very literal sense, more about shifting the medium than changing the text.

As far as I can tell, the biggest addition Whedon makes to the material is some slapstick comedy. When Benedick overhears some people talking about his relationship with Beatrice, he quickly dives behind a sliding glass door. Not long after that scene, Beatrice is put in a similar sitution to eavesdrop on some people also talking about her and Benedick. She ends up stumbling down a flight of stairs before regaining her composure. Another funny bit has Benedick doing some impromptu push-ups while attempting to impress his love interest. It's the sort of light comedy that cuts through the denseness of the prose.

Apparently, that athletic display was thought up by Alexis Densioff, which goes to show you how valuable actors are to keeping this kind of material fresh. Anyone familiar with Whedon's television work, of course, knows Densioff as Wesley, from “Buffy' and “Angel.” The film pairs him with Amy Acker, who naturally played Fred, Wesley's eventual love interest. So the two already have a strong, workable chemistry. It turns out navigating Shakespeare and and Whedon's dialogue must be similar exercises. Acker and Densioff spit the elaborate dialogue with such ferocity, they make it look no great feat at all.

Whedon invites a lot of his company players along for this endeavor. Clark Gregg shows up as Leonato, bringing a due amount of respect to what is probably the most respectable part in the play. (Anthony Stewart Head was originally going to play the role, which would've been even better, but Agent Coulson had to step in.) Sean Mahler, “Firefly's” Simon, plays Don Carlos, one of the story's villains. Mahler is good at appearing sinister, as if he's plotting something bad. Nathan Fillion's complete fearlessness as a comic performer is put to good work as Dogberry, easily the play's funniest part. Riki Lindholm, who previously showed up on an episode of “Buffy,” also gets to use her natural sex appeal and talent for acerbic dialogue as Conrade. (A male part in the original text.)

Presumably to make the project seem even artier, Whedon made the decision to shoot “”Much Ado About Nothing” in black-and-white. It looks pretty. Cinematographer Jay Hunter works hard to make the single location look at interesting as possible. It is a very nice house. Hunter makes the whites very bright and the blacks very dark. Even if that funeral scene couldn't be more out of place, Hunter makes it the best scene in the movie on a visual level. Considering “Much Ado About Nothing” was a side project shot in the director's home, it's quite cinematic looking.

Hunter is the exception in the crew. Whedon directed the movie, adapted the script, edited it, produced it, and even wrote the music. Joss does a decent job at all of these things. The editing is pretty tight. The music is solid. It feels fittingly Shakespearean, composed of lilting pianos and simple cords. There's even two songs added to the score, both drawing their words from the Bard. “Sigh No More” has a catchy dream-pop melody, pretty female vocals, and a memorable chorus. “Heavily” is a sadder, darker song with similarly dreamy vocals and fittingly morose instrumentation.

As this review indicates, “Much Ado About Nothing” isn't really my kind of thing. It's by no means a bad movie. Considering it was shot in the director's free time, with the cast composed entirely of old friends,the finished product is relatively fleet-footed and satisfying. This is the kind of stuff you can do when you're the director of a massive blockbuster and the creator of a beloved television series. Yet any adaptation of Shakespeare that keeps the original text largely intact always ends up feeling more like an experiment than any sort of unique project. This is a variation on a theme, not a work meant to stand alone. I'm sure scholars have a lot more to say about this. I can only gleam so much. [Grade: C+]