Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, David Oyelowo, Kevin Kline, Alfred Molina, Adrian Lester

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”

The varied career of Kenneth Branagh is a combination of the latter two qualities, I think. He achieved greatness early, taking on the title role of Henry V in a Royal Shakespeare Company production at the age of 23, when most actors are angling for walk-ons as chorus members. He went on to produce, direct, and star in a groundbreaking film version of the same play in 1989, igniting the recent firestorm of Shakespeare movie adaptations and earning Oscar nods for Best Actor and Best Director in the process. He was 29 years old.

His hugely entertaining Hollywood thriller, Dead Again, earned him comparisons to Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock from the venerable Roger Ebert — heady praise indeed, especially coming on the heels of the “next Olivier” mantle conferred on Branagh after the success of Henry V. Coupled with the surprisingly lucrative box-office returns for his star-studded Much Ado About Nothing, Branagh’s heir-apparency to Welles and Olivier seemed assured.

At that point, perhaps, greatness was thrust on Branagh a bit too early. The story goes that Branagh went off the rails with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, an operatic retelling of the classic horror tale that played too often like a vanity project (one remembers Branagh as Victor Frankenstein stalking around his laboratory with glistening, washboard abs on display, as if the tortured doctor filled time between experiments by doing countless sit-ups) and underperformed at the box-office. It’s a flawed film, certainly, but not nearly as insufferable as Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula of a few years prior, which featured stunning photography and design, but also stunningly awful performances from the likes of Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves (who was also terrible, bless him, in Much Ado.)

Since then — again, as the story goes — Branagh has been unable to regain his footing. His Hamlet is the real heartbreaker for me. It comes so close to greatness so often that the miscalculated sequences feel even more off the mark by comparison with the many scenes that soar. The roller-skating camera, the Roger Corman chintz of the forest, a confused-looking Jack Lemmon, a head-scratching reading of the “How all occasions” soliloquy, the mock-Wagnerian soundtrack, the hysterical histrionics of the last act…these holes in the hull eventually sink the titanic, four-hour production. Yet there was much to love, and for me Hamlet is the quintessence of Branagh…a strange brew of genius and goofiness.

His musical version of Love’s Labour’s Lost had creamy charm and a bit of old school glamour, but was hampered by shaggy-dog choreography and another curious casting choice: Alicia Silverstone. It’s a slight but highly watchable production.

I offer the cursory overview of Branagh’s career as a preamble to my viewing of As You Like It, the one-time wunderkind’s latest Shakespeare adaptation. It premiered last year on HBO, a company that is currently producing original films at a quality equal to or greater than the output of most major movie studios these days. It’s a good collaboration for Branagh — he starred as Franklin D. Roosevelt in the company’s acclaimed Warm Springs, and he was icily brilliant in the role of Nazi commander, Reinhard Heydrich in Conspiracy.

Whether it’s middle-age, the smaller-screen format, or artistic maturity, Branagh has scaled back with this production, settled down, and the result is his most fluid and confident piece of work in recent memory — a lovely, life-affirming adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays by his most unabashedly populist interpreter. Though it lacks the dizzying heights of some of his earlier work (I’m thinking, naturally, of the incendiary exchanges between Beatrice and Benedick), I put it to you, gentle reader, that this is Branagh’s most consistent Shakespeare film since Henry V. I love it, as one can only love a film by a spirit as generous, energetic and benevolent as Branagh’s when he’s at his best.

Admittedly, it took me a bit to warm up to the conceit of the movie. A title card informs us that during the 19^th century, trade routes between Europe and Japan opened the door for Westerners to adopt Oriental styles of dress and modes of living in Eastern trading posts. Edward Said (author of the influential book, Orientalism) may blush, but Branagh uses the Japanese trappings to dramatic effect.

The early scenes are set in the low-ceilinged, closed-in court of Duke Senior (Brian Blessed), who looms threateningly over his courtiers like a samurai Darth Vader. He banishes his niece, Rosalind (Bryce Dallas Howard), out of fear that her popularity will undermine his authority by reminding everyone how he ill-treated her father, his brother, the Duke Antonio (also played Brian Blessed). So Rosalind, disguised as a boy, jets it for the magical Forest of Arden with her BFF (Best Friend Forever), Celia—the Duke Senior’s daughter.

Also jetting for the Forest is Orlando (David Oyelowo), younger brother to Oliver (Adrian Lester), who became smitten with Rosalind after an earlier encounter. In the forest he meets Duke Antonio, now leader of a hippie-ish clan of forest dwellers who value peace, love, and hospitality. Orlando also meets Ganymede, a “pretty youth” who turns out to be Rosalind in disguise. Romantic hijinks ensue.

Once in the forest, As You Like It hits its stride. Court intrigue blossoms into bucolic romance in the magical surroundings, and Branagh is able to make the forest seem at once gloriously real—the scenes were filmed on location in a Sussex park—and also touched by transcendental fantasy. He incorporates Japanese culture’s philosophical view of nature to contrast the severe, shadowy court with the flowing lines of the sun-splashed forest — “tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” Patrick Doyle’s lush pastoral score sounds like Ralph Vaughan Williams with an appropriate hint of the Far East.

Without Branagh among the cast members, he demonstrates his deft handling of fellow thespians, drawing spirited performances from a talented ensemble. Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of director Ron Howard, whose greatest contribution to the arts thus far has been to squire Bryce), is positively radiant as Rosalind. Her winning smile, disarming wit, and approachable beauty mark her as the thinking man’s Julia Roberts. She originated the role on stage in New York in a performance that caught the eye of M. Night Shyamalan, who promptly cast her in The Village and again in the lamentable Lady in the Water.

Here she returns to the Forest of Arden and seems at ease in her surroundings. Branagh’s long, unbroken takes don’t give his actors anywhere to hide, so Howard’s stage training serves her well. She captures Rosalind’s joie de vivre and makes critics reach for words like “luminescent” and “iridescent” when what they really mean is that they’d like to ask her out to pizza and a kung-fu movie if they weren’t so busy staring at their shoes in her company. Her romantic foil, Orlando, can seem dull as ditchwater next to the babbling brook that is Rosalind, but David Oyelowo, a veteran of RSC, conveys something of Orlando’s integrity and warmth; he’s grounded enough not to get blown off the screen by Howard.

Some critics have complained that Branagh downplays Rosalind in this production — a mystifying claim that would only be true if Shakespeare had been playing a zero-sum game, but there’s plenty of great stuff to go around. Alfred Molina (sporting an Eraserhead hairdo) hams it up brilliantly as Touchstone; his scenes with earthy Audrey are hilariously bawdy. Romola Garai beguiles the time as Celia, her pre-Raphaelite beauty only enhanced by her willingness to do pratfalls. The Phoebe/Sylvius subplot is helped by young Alex Wyndham’s winning turn as the lovelorn shepherd, Sylvius .

In a stellar cast, Kevin Kline is a bit of a disappointment. Years ago, his melancholic Hamlet was deeply moving, a coherent vision for one of drama’s most difficult parts. That would seem to position him as the perfect interpreter of the Forest of Arden’s resident Eeyore, Jacques. For some reason, Kline doesn’t quite convince — the words roll off his tongue naturally enough, but what’s lacking is a sense of a fully-formed character speaking them, something beyond the tone of wistful sadness. Kline is very good, don’t get me wrong — this is nothing like the debacle that was Keanu in Much Ado or Alicia in Love’s Labour’s — just a bit of a letdown. This is probably the only production I’ve ever seen of this play where Oliver is a more dimensional character than Jacques.

That fact owes everything to Adrian Lester. In casting Lester in a supporting role, directors encounter a Catch 22. On the plus side, he will elevate any part, however small — the guy is so good he even makes Oliver fascinating, and that’s no mean feat. On the downside (if it is a downside), a director will simply have to accept the fact that Adrian Lester is going to steal any scene he’s in. The man has Shakespeare in his muscle and bones; he speaks his lines as fluently as though he were giving you directions to a streetcorner pub. Simply put, the guy should be in a lot more movies and he should be starring in them.

Lester’s style can suit either intellectual Peter Brook (for whom he played Hamlet, in my favorite production of the play) or the populist Branagh. Branagh’s approach to Shakespeare is one of maximum clarity, drama, and entertainment value, which make his productions the perfect vehicle for introducing neophytes to Shakespeare. (Teachers, take note!).

Purists may moan and groan, but Branagh has single-handedly done more to introduce the Bard to a broad audience than any other artist alive today. I was watching Much Ado once with my little brother Liam (who considers videogame Halo 3 the last word in the visual arts). Though only eight years old, he guffawed every time Michael Keaton, channeling Beetlejuice by way of Monty Python, appeared on screen as the inept constable, Dogberry. I myself fell in love with Shakespeare at a similar age thanks to Branagh’s Henry V (I can even pinpoint the exact scene — Henry’s intense encounter with his friend and betrayer, Lord Scroop).

As You Like It showcases Branagh at his best, combining wit with slapstick and beauty with a trace of melancholy. He modulates between pathos and hilarity with expert timing. This is a thoroughly entertaining production that should delight newcomers to the Bard as well as remind Shax fans of why the Forest of Arden is such an enchanting place to pass a few spellbound hours. And for conveying the joy and passion of Shakespeare to audiences young and old, as Nim once said of his King Henry, I say of Branagh: “I’d kiss his dirty shoe.”

Click here to read Branagh’s short article about the making of As You Like It.