Perhaps the most flawed of Branagh’s Shakespeare films, Love’s Labour’s Lost is a fitting adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s weaker plays. It’s a silly story and Branagh leans hard into the silliness while transplanting the action into a pre-war (WW2) setting and transforming the play into a Porter and Gershwin jukebox musical. Too much of the play is lost, not all of the performances are good (was this the final nail in Alicia Silverstone’s post-Clueless bubble? She’s not really bad, she’s just not…good), and the singing is a bit of a mixed bag. But I’m still going to go to bat for Branagh’s LLL. There is no bad Shakespeare, some of the songs work very well, and the movie goes down as easily as a glass of champagne – all light and fizziness and fun.
There is, finally, a wonderful cast rendition of Gershwin’s “Can’t take that away from me”. I have the Fitzgerald and Armstrong version of this in my Apple Library. Which is great, and nobody in LLL is singing like they do. But I love their version too. It’s a song that rewards actors as much as singers and it’s the climactic and best number in LLL. It stayed with me for days. Say what you will, but no, no, no, you can’t take that away from me. (Criterion)
Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhUZX4sVH_8