THE TEMPEST
Directed by Julie Taymor
Produced by Taymor, Robert Chartoff, Lynn Hendee, Julia Taylor-Stanley &Jason K. Lau
Written by Taymor, based on the play by William Shakespeare
Released by Touchstone Pictures/Miramax Films
USA. 110 min. Rated PG-13
With Helen Mirren, Russell Brand, Reeve Carney, Tom Conti, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Djimon Hounsou, David Strathairn & Ben Whishaw
 

Prospero or Prospera? Is William Shakespeare’s The Tempest irrevocably altered or distorted by the sex change of the aging sorcerer? Well, Prospero and Prospera have the same number of syllables, which doesn’t alter the iambic pentameter (you know, the five syllabic stresses comprising one line of verse, more or less). Likewise with the substitution of “father” for “mother.”

Furthermore, the story largely remains the same. Twelve years earlier, Prospera and her daughter were banished by her brother, Antonio (Chris Cooper), who, in league with the King of Naples, usurped her power. To carry out her plan for retribution, Prospera summons what she calls her “rough magic” and conjures a storm to bring a ship with the duke and king onboard crashing to her deserted island. However, she has not foreseen her daughter, Miranda (the down-to-earth Felicity Jones), falling in love with the washed-up Ferdinand, the king’s son, or two drunken sailors (is there any other kind?) conspiring with her resentful slave to kill her.

Perhaps the protagonist is less ill-tempered now and more knowing, empathizing with her sheltered daughter in a way that a father couldn’t, but any sort of navel gazing ends when Helen Mirren’s Prospera appears on camera. She has an assurance lacking in most of the cast, a grab bag of stunt casting. Listening to her deliver the greatest-hits monologues, your ear will automatically jolt to attention—the text’s meaning and her intentions are clear as day. It’s a shame that it has been nearly 30 years since her last Shakespearean role on film or television. It’s not for nothing that when she made her debut in Michael Powell’s Age of Consent (1969)—itself a riff on The Tempest—she was credited as appearing courtesy of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Mirren’s ease with the text is apparent in the film’s mid-section when Prospera virtually disappears and other actors take center stage. Chris Cooper carefully delivers his lines, but he never has the body language of the conspiratorial brother, though Alan Cumming, on the other hand, embraces his darker side as the duke’s insidious sidekick Sebastian. Russell Brand, as the drunken Trinculo, provides the low comic relief. Sure, he grabs his crotch and belches, but he and fellow drunk Alfred Molina have the most difficult roles—to bring to life the sometimes inscrutable 1611 humor. Left to their own devices, they frail about, hamming it up. By far, the most awkwardly directed scene involves these marooned men discovering the frightened slave, Caliban, hiding under a blanket. Filmed on a flat plateau, Brand is made to stumble over Caliban, the only object unmistakably in view. It’s like a scene from community theater plopped down on the volcanic Hawaiian location. Though Djimon Hounsou fully and physically takes on the role of the servile Caliban, he’s more times than not indecipherable. Don’t even bother trying to make sense of the dialogue in the shipwreck scene either.

For the most part, director Julie Taymor nimbly balances the text and the special effects that the fantastical setting suggests: a morphing androgynous spirit, Ariel (the assured Ben Whishaw); lava spewing dogs; and a CGI-rendered shipwreck. She knows when to silence the bells and whistles, letting the camera focus, close up, on Mirren as she delivers the “Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves” speech. The words still provide the most magic. (Sadly, Taymor jettisons the play’s epilogue.) However, because so much of the play has been pruned, the ending connects all the dots, with forgiveness and reconciliation perfunctory bestowed not earned.

The Mad Max-like costuming and the occasional electrical guitar blasts not withstanding, Taymor’s retelling is much more staid than Peter Greenaway’s luxuriant Prospero’s Books (1991), which had its own gimmick—nearly all of its dialogue was spoken by star John Gielgud. In Greenaway’s Northern Baroque/chiaroscuro production, the dress code was clothing optional. Here at least, there are no awkward glances from uncomfortably naked extras on the verge of cracking up. Kent Turner
December 10, 2010