Inspired performances in ‘As You Like It’ on HBO

Kenneth Branagh has set the Shakespeare play in
19th-century Japan.

By DAVID BIANCULLI

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

In directing a new version of William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” Kenneth Branagh fosters a giddy sort of freedom in his actors.

Branagh’s adaptation (premiering at 9 tonight on HBO) at first sounds like it’s taking liberties just for the sake of taking them. The story is transplanted from the Forest of Arden to 19th-century Japan, and begins with some kabuki theater, a samurai invasion and a sumo contest.

But once the story gets going, and the characters seek solace in the nearby woods, the Japanese elements either fade away or get absorbed nicely, and the actors — and Shakespeare’s playful words — take center stage.

Bryce Dallas Howard, the star of “The Village” and “Lady in the Water,” is given the best role yet of her young career — and she’s nothing short of a revelation here. TV has given us one great Rosalind before this, when Helen Mirren played her in the “Shakespeare Plays” complete cycle in the late ’70s, but Howard is just as much in command of a character that’s as complex as it is comic.

Rosalind, after all, is a woman who disguises herself as a man, then feigns portraying a woman. Howard manages it all, without seeming too boyish, too girlish or too artificial. And she does a lot of it in unbroken long takes, as Branagh’s directorial style is, for many scenes, the challenging Shakespearean equivalent of a “West Wing”-style “walk-and-talk.”

Brilliant performances

Kevin Kline, as the philosopher Jacques, gets to perform the famous “All the world’s a stage” soliloquy in the opposite manner: He sits still, and the camera rotates all around him. But it’s still one unbroken take, and it’s just as mesmerizing, and pleasantly theatrical.

Other standout performances include Brian Blessed in a dual role, playing the kind Duke and his mercenary brother; Alfred Molina, as the quick-tongued court jester Touchstone; Romola Garai, a delightful discovery as Celia, Rosalind’s cousin, and David Oyelowo, the embodiment of pure passion as Orlando.

“As You Like It” is effortlessly entertaining from start to finish — and don’t miss the finish. After the closing credits, Howard delivers Rosalind’s epilogue while wandering back to her film-set trailer — and those last words you hear, after she shuts the door on her final, unbroken speech, are Branagh, saying, “And ... cut!”