Title: For those who find KING LEAR too cheerful
Product review: This dismal film conveys scarcely any hint that the play on which it is based is a comedy. Many of the jokes are gone, and the survivors are damped down--if you are not already familiar with the play, you will not realize that they ARE jokes. Moreover, the play's theme--which may, with extreme succinctness, be expressed as "you have to keep on enjoying life, even if bad things happen"--has been replaced by one of "remember, you must die." The atmosphere is solemn, with death and decay omnipresent. In brief, this is TWELFTH NIGHT as interpreted by Malvolio. You may be tempted to watch it anyway, because of the many fine actors in the cast, but their efforts are suffocated in the general gloom.
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