SNEAKS: "It's a fantastic celebration of love, the transforming power of
love, how vulnerable it makes you feel, how heroic, how poetic!" says
Kenneth Branagh of his just-unveiled movie musical, Love's Labor's Lost.
But such celebration seems bittersweet personally because Branagh has broken
up with Helena Bonham Carter (who doesn't labor in this particular Branagh
movie). "It's very sad. It was mutual, no one else involved. We remain great
friends. That's the truth!" Branagh said at last week's private screening,
hosted by Martin Scorsese and Miramax. He won't say any more, though he
still thinks Bonham Carter is "adorable."
The early line is good on Love's Labor's, Branagh's quirky effort to make a
musical out of the Shakespeare play about four men who fail at swearing off
women for three years.
"It really works," Scorsese said after the screening of the
not-quite-finished project, which has no release date yet. "It has the
spirit of the MGM and even the RKO musicals, and it has beauty. And it's
very moving at the end - unexpectedly."
Legendary musical director Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain) told me,
"It's fun, great, joyful."
Kevin Kline called it "daring."
Miramax's Harvey Weinstein told the audience, which included co-star Nathan
Lane, "If we screw it up, well, we tried."
What Branagh has done is to insert songs by Gershwin, Porter, Berlin and
Kern into the play at points where they seem natural. I've Got a Crush on
You, Dancing Cheek to Cheek, even There's No Business Like Show Business,
with a touching intro by Lane, find places, and the cast dances up a storm.
Alicia Silverstone is a major treat as the daughter of the king of France.
She is lovely, slim, and you think she's clueless about Shakespeare? Not!
And a big-company ad contract should await Timothy Spall, who plays a
lovesick soldier. He could be the funniest man on TV today