She's the Man

[muchabstracted]

lynnoxford and I have seen a movie. Apparently, this means that I update my LJ. We went to She's the Man, the latest Modern High School adaptation of a classic work (in this case, Twelfth Night), expecting it to be mostly hilariously bad.

It was great.

Viola cross-dressing looked, realistically, like a boy. A 14 year old boy, with a round face and kind of girly cheekbones, but a boy. She and Sebastian looked realistically alike, which was a nice touch. The "madness ensues" portions were funny, and even the part of me that was occasionally squirming in embarassment for Viola enjoyed itself. The two main romances were well done -- Duke was great, Viola was great, Duke and Viola together were lovely, and a background character/plot twist they added made it more believable that Olivia might genuinely transfer her crush on Viola to Sebastian.

Just on a sociological level, the grrrrl power message was well done and consistent, and had no problematic undertones that I could catch. I wouldn't have enjoyed the movie less if it wasn't, but it is just such a relief to come out of a movie and not be quietly fuming on some internal political level.

...I want to see it again.

Comments

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's not the kind of review I'd been hearing about this at all. Now I want to see it.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just went and looked at a lot of reviews online, most of which completely disagreed with me. *shrugs* I make no pretense of having normal opinions, but I really do think it was well done.

I suppose it matters that I have no particular knowledge of Twelfth Night, beyond having read the play once and seen it once; it is entirely possible that I would be fuming on a literary level if I knew more about the original play.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I think most of the reviews that I saw basically said, "It was totally implausible, but we have to say, we enjoyed ourselves anyway."

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Basically. It was implausible, but my suspension of disbelief remained steady right up until this one moment at the end.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Shakespearean plots should not be experienced for their plausibility.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

Exactly. So I basically classed them as enthusiastic reviews in denial.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Fourth'd.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

Actually, to expand upon that, in terms of effective theatrical staging, implausability is *key* -- specifically, Viola and Sebastian should NOT look exactly alike, or even really alike enough for it to be believable that anyone could mistake one for the other. The thing is, the audience *has* to be able to tell them apart instantly, or the comedy simply doesn't work.

This became really obvious to me when I saw two different productions of Comedy of Errors (which involves two sets of identical twins). In one, the lead twins were played by actual identical twins. In the other, the servant twins were played by people who looked almost exactly alike. In the first, the jokes about the leads didn't work. In the second, the jokes about the servants didn't work. It was all much, much funnier to the audience when the twins didn't really resemble one another. If you can't immediately tell that the other characters are addressing the wrong twin, it's just not funny.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

*nods* This makes sense. It also excuses the one moment in which my suspension of disbelief fell through.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Given that the online reviews I just read have almost uniformly disagreed with me, I am happy to see physical proof that I am not insane. :)

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

I did see that one, because I thought Ebert might be sensible enough to enjoy it. That said, I wasn't quite sure what he was getting at with the near-constant references to how he wasn't talking about Shakespeare.

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Wow. I expected it to be gag-worthy, at least. Good to hear!

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

It was full of gags...

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Of course, but I meant "gag" in the sense of involuntary closure of the throat as a reaction to internal irritation, distress or extreme disgust. :)

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought as much! But the pun was too much for me to pass up, despite being gag-worthy in and of itself.

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. But wait, wouldn't that-

But I-

::streams cross::

::universe implodes::

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

The universe imploded? Wow, I must really be immersed in this paper...

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Good think the Internet is still functioning well.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

All of a sudden, I feel oddly powerful.

[countessofgroan.livejournal.com]

Oh, great! I'm so glad a modern retelling of my favorite Shakespeare play is actually good! It did look interesting (mostly because of the Twelfth Night thing), but I was afraid it would be just another teen movie.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Well, it's possible it is. I just happened to enjoy the gags from this one. However, by the next time we are looking for a movie to rent, it will probably be on video. *beams* I have this bizarre belief that mickyg would enjoy it too, I"m not sure why.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I want to see it too! If nothing else, I have to keep up on my collection of Modern High School Shakespeare adaptations.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Oooh, maybe The Brother will want to see it too!

*giggles helplessly*

I would definitely go again, if it was a matinee, but I don't think I actually have a free week day until May. Bah.