Summary 
Modernized to the early 19th century, this star-studded film adaptation presents a psychedelic fairy world as a contrast to the prudish rigidity of 1800s Europe. Amid lush photography of the Tuscan countryside and soaring snippets from Mendelssohn and Verdi operas, the four young lovers are literally stripped bare in the forest by Puck and the firefly fairies, mud wrestling over their emotions until they finally emerge, purified and naked. Traditional entertainment tries too hard to also be Alice in Wonderland and Star Wars, ploddingly paced but handsomely filmed, with robust performances by Calista Flockhart as Helena and by Kevin Kline as Bottom in a pathos-rich expanded role.
Production
Directed by Michael Hoffman. 1999. 2:00.
Cast
Christian Bale (Demetrius), Rupert Everett (Oberon), Calista Flockhart (Helena), Anna Friel (Hermia), Bernard Hill (Egeus), Bill Irwin (Snout), Gregory Jbara (Snug), Kevin Kline (Nick Bottom), Sophie Marceau (Hippolyta), Michelle Pfeiffer (Titania), Roger Rees (Peter Quince), Sam Rockwell (Francis Flute), John Sessions (Philostrate), David Strathairn (Theseus), Stanley Tucci (Puck), Dominic West (Lysander), Max Wright (Starveling).
Analysis
Michael Hoffman modernizes Shakespeare's Athens-set A Midsummer Night's Dream to the early 19th-century village of Monte Athena, Italy, crowding an already complex multi-character play with some daunting Victorian social rigidity - captions explain that "neck lines are high, parents are rigid, marriage is seldom a matter of love" - as well as an eccentric fixation on "the meteoric rise of that newfangled creation, the bicycle." With a densely layered plot that demands clear and definitive story-telling, Hoffman's additional thematics and a lush, if claustrophobic, series of indoor and outdoor set decorations slow and overwhelm the story. To begin, a firefly, representing a bobbing yellow fairy light, is joined by one, two, then more yellow glows floating and weaving across a pre-dawn Italian landscape, bursting into an array of butterflies from the main title to flutter near Hoffman's Monte Athena in rising music and a brightening morning sky.
Hoffman's camera painstakingly tracks the preparations for the massive outdoor celebration of Theseus' wedding to Hippolyta. Amid bubbling concrete water fountains and gray stone statues, servants set up tables with flowers, unfurl banners, and arrange flowers while a formal band rehearses. Indoors is mayhem, with tomatoes being crushed, garlic being cut, and knives being sharpened among clucking chickens, hanging pasta dough, feathered game birds, and spitted pigs. Strangely, a pair of dwarfish thieves steal silverware and escape outside in a wheeled cart among the flitting fairly lights, a head-scratcher that perhaps implies the impish thieves are themselves Puck's fairies. The image returns Hoffman's camera outdoors, and he pans the lavish ducal estate before settling on a low-angle mid-close up of the nervous Theseus and the beautiful Hipployta. Their kiss is interrupted by a huffing Egeus, and the conflict between the four young lovers revolves around Anna Friel's elegantly beautiful Hermia - "so live, so die, my lord" - in a ruffled pink gown, wearing a sash, gloves, and hat, her elaborate hair up. She and her not-so-young friends seem stiff in their severely formal attire, the men - played by Christian Bale and Dominic West - looking about to suffocate in suits with starched white collars. Sophie Marceau's empathetic Hippolyta lingers to observe Egeus' puritanical request - "I beg the ancient privilege of Athens" - as well as the scuffle between Lysander and Bale's shifty Demetrius ("this spotted and inconstant man") before rushing out in disapproval.
Calista Flockhart's Helena, endearingly bedraggled with her hair in a loose pony tail, first appears in a blaze of outdoor sunshine, gazing up at Demetrius in a window from her bicycle next to a spewing water fountain on a mosaic stone path. She happily calls his name but when he backs away and shutters the window her cry becomes injured then angry. Flockhart's natural and emotional performance injects some needed energy into the film, which seems mired in careful line delivery as well as elaborate set decoration and meticulously detailed period costumes. Her groaning soliloquy while careening downhill upon her bicycle - "through Athens I am thought as fair as she" - is skillfully delivered, and she is indeed as lovely as Hermia, but desperate and urgent whereas Friel's Hermia exudes refined grace. Helena's eye roll at the cooing between Hermia and Lysander draws the first chuckle of the comedy, already a quarter of an hour into the film, and they confide to her their plans to elope. Hoffman cuts to a low-angle image of the dictatorial Egeus standing rigidly in a stone balcony strung with red cloth, looking much like a Fascist politico about to deliver a wartime speech, then to Helena as she wheels her bicycle away with tears in her eyes, muttering "oh, spite!" and once she's off camera, "oh, hell!"
Hoffman shifts to a posted notice of "a dramatic competition" to introduce Nick Bottom and the rude mechanicals, but only after more shots of the brown city perched upon a sloping green hill within the reddened blue haze of twilight. To a soaring operatic aria, Hoffman pans past churches with tolling bells, a crowded public courtyard with goats and chickens, and plastered arches and columned buildings with open windows, before finally settling on Robin Starveling, a cigarette-smoking tailor, Lysander visible purchasing two escape bicycles in the background. Yet more imagery - a man sharpening a knife on a stone wheel, an organ grinder, a man riding a bicycle, another man pulling a big wheeled cart, men playing cards at a little wooden table - passes before Kevin Kline's amiable idiot Bottom is finally seen. Kline's goateed and long-haired Bottom, wearing a white suit with white hat, drinks espresso from a demitasse at a café table before rising to adjust his hat to a rakish angle from his reflection in a shop window then flirt with two passing women. He panics when he notices his wife shoving a man aside in the courtyard, and he hides in a doorway - "that worthless dreamer," she mutters - until she passes. Kline's Bottom - "I will move storms!" - sparks the mechanicals much as Flockhart's Helena does the lovers, first drawing stares then applause from the people in the square - "raging rocks and shivering shocks" - and he interrupts Peter Quince repeatedly: "let me play Thisby too." When two boys as a joke pour red wine on him from a scaffold above, Kline's suddenly embarrassed Bottom turns his back, becoming downhearted and wiping his face as the crowd now laughs at him. Hoffman's camera follows Bottom home, a dreary march up a darkened narrow staircase, and he hangs his hat and sighs, sheepishly revealing his wine-stained suit to his wife. When she turns her back on him, Kline's pitiful Bottom looks wistfully out the window as Hoffman cuts to a sudden rainstorm.
Hoffman's camera shows the citizens of Monte Athena soaked in the rainfall, with Flockhart's hatted Helena trudging uphill with her bicycle, muttering as she accidentally knocks a basket from a woman's hand and loses her hat in a gust of wind. A burst of lightning reveals the return of the fairy fireflies, and Hoffman's camera follows them deep into the woods where human-like fairies scamper and leap in the foliage. Hoffman divulges his fairy world vision of A Midsummer Night's Dream as something of a bacchanalian revelry - with snippets of some sex and nudity - a weird musical party of dancing and feasting to music from flutes and cymbals and drums. Stanley Tucci's sly but good-hearted Puck, blond-haired but bald on top, has two horns on the sides of his head like a little devil, and another horn jutting from the back of his skull. In a bizarre scene that echoes George Lucas' outer-space tavern sequence in Star Wars, Tucci's Puck flirts with a jaded fairy as if a pick-up at a surreal bar, shadows dancing on the wall behind him. Mocked by another fairy, he appears floating in Alice in Wonderland-miniature within her stein of beer, then pursues the drunken bar-fly sprite outside, kissing her hand before slipping and falling to his behind. The scene adds little but jolting oddity to the film, and Tucci's Puck soliloquizes while urinating on a tree, then spies Titania and her lady fairies at the top of a stone staircase. Michelle Pfeiffer's fuming Titania, shrouded in white and stunning in flowing blonde curls, affects lightning strikes - big fake boulders break free and tumble from the hillside - and marsh water begins to bubble and boil amid rising wind as her fairies approach like ghosts. Pfeiffer's Titania, looking like a combination of Hermia and Helena, shows pouty expressions and intelligent eyes, putting her finger to her lips to stop the wind and lightning as she confronts Oberon. Rupert Everett's laconic Fairy King, sitting high in his fairy-world throne, sports thick but dark short hair, golden spikes emerging from his head in a crown. He battles with Titania - "these are the forgeries of jealousy" - regarding the changeling boy, a ghastly blue-skinned creature seated upon a donkey. Everett's Oberon then lies on the forest floor upon his belly, and Tucci's Puck joins him, imitating his posture, to accept his mission: "fetch me that flower."
Everett's Oberon observes as Helena pursues Demetrius - "I love thee not, therefore pursue me not!" - into the woods, little night lights on their bicycle handle bars: "get thee gone and follow me no more." Flockhart's breathless Helena, her hand on her chest, honks the bicycle horn and giggles, much to the delight of the watching Oberon. Helena's loyalty - "I am your spaniel" - is evident as Bale's stern Demetrius pumps up a flattened bicycle tire then abandons her in the wood, and Flockhart's wistful delivery - "spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me, but give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you" - defines the finest performance in Hoffman's film. Hoffman's camera tracks Flockhart's Helena - "I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell" - as she pursues on her bicycle, racing off past Everett's invisible Oberon. Hoffman then cuts to Pfeiffer's gorgeous Titania within her acid-trip bower, a psychedelic wonderland of glitter and gossamer, lace and twinkling lights. Fairies play flutes and swing from vines, wear pots upon their heads - one is a Medusa with snakes for hair - and more swim naked in a creek. Everett's Oberon casts his spell - "wake when some vile thing is near" - face to face with her as she sleeps, then Hoffman cuts back to Lysander and Hermia, both of course upon bicycles in the woods. Friel's perky Hermia resembles Little Red Riding Hood in white gloves, red shawl with collar, and straw hat with decorative berries. Tucci's Puck, who arrives sitting upon a giant turtle he rides upon through the woods, is initially frightened by the bicycle he finds, poking at it as if in fear it may attack him, then turning on the headlight and honking the horn.
Hoffman intercuts the ensuing translations - Lysander and Bottom - to good effect, the best scenes of the entire film, but they play with too much of a perfunctory stolidity and too little whimsical charm. Flockhart's delightful Helena throws down her bicycle - "I am out of breath in this fond chase" - and awakens West's enchanted and almost naked Lysander: "who will not change a raven for a dove?" West's Lysander pursues her with a sheet wrapped around his waist, racing after her on a bicycle. Then Hoffman cuts to Pfeiffer's Titania, asleep in a bed suspended over the bower in which Bottom and the homespuns comically rehearse. They forget character names, decide they need a prologue, stumble for lines, jumble words - odorous for odious, Ninny's tomb for Ninus' tomb - and generally muddle along until Kline's bully Bottom wanders off. He finds a top hat and cane, marvels at his reflection in a shimmering pool within an old tree stump, and returns to his friends hairy and dark-eyed, removing the hat to reveal the long ears of a donkey. Quince's crew scatters - "fly masters, we are haunted!" - Snug right into a tree, and Bottom's self-conscious singing ("this is to make an ass of me") breaks into a donkey's bray that awakens Titania. Pfeiffer's enamored Titania - "out of this wood do not desire to go" - magically sends vine tendrils to loop around Bottom's feet and hoist him in the air upside down, his hairy face next to hers. Kline's Bottom, stunned by the devoted attention he apparently has never before experienced, is served wild berries and clothed in robes and a gold headband. When Pfeiffer's Titania takes his hand and cups it to her breast, they kiss and she giggles demurely at his apparent arousal. When she straddles him within her suspended bed, she caresses his chest then rolls onto her back submissively, and Kline's Bottom again brays like an ass. Hoffman cuts back to Puck and the lovers in the woods - "Lord, what fools these mortals be" - and now both Lysander and Demetrius pursue the affection of Helena: "goddess!" While they wrestle with one another, West's Lysander struggling to speak with Demetrius' forearm wedged against his chin, Flockhart's insulted Helena - "'tis not friendly, 'tis not maidenly" - attempts to flee on her bicycle. The men simply hold the back end of the bicycle in the air, so Helena peddles furiously but goes nowhere. Friel's Hermia, stung by Lysander's harsh words ("'tis no jest that I hate thee"), removes her jacket and charges at Helena: "you juggler! you canker blossom! you thief of love!" They fall backward into a mud puddle, pursued by Demetrius and Lysander, shouting and pulling each other's hair, and all four emerge splattered head to toe in dripping mud.
Tucci's Puck, after a glare and an ear pull from Oberon - "this is thy negligence" - races to make repairs on a bicycle streaming billowing clouds of white smoke: "up and down, up and down, I will lead them up and down." The lovers, caked now in drying mud, fall asleep in enchantment, Friel's Hermia at Lysander's side, and Flockhart's bewildered Helena crawls away through the brush before giving in to the spell. Puck makes amends - "Jack shall have Jill, naught shall go ill" - as Everett's apparently regretful Oberon gently awakens his Titania. Her wonder does not lead to anger - "how came these things to pass?" - and Hoffman's camera captures their reconciling kiss in rising operatic music, then shows them walking arm in arm to change into fireflies as the morning sun rises over the mountain city. The sleeping lovers, now snuggling and clean and entirely naked with flowers in their hair, are awakened in a field by the horseback Theseus and Hippolyta and a host of fellow hunters. When Theseus orders them to stand, they of course hesitate, then scramble for clothing. The lovers share kisses as trumpets blare and Hippolyta takes Theseus' hand. Finally, Kline's hairy ass Bottom - still in robes and crown - tumbles from Titania's suspended bed and hits the ground in his usual ragtag clothing and sans donkey hair and ears. He seems to fondly recall his "dream," checks again for donkey ears, and races off to find his grieving mates: "O sweet bully Bottom!"
Hoffman then cuts to the concluding triple wedding celebration and court performance of Pyramus and Thisby. An Italian tenor sings as Bottom and the acting troupe join groups of performers within a rehearsing hall then walk to the Palace stairs, looking awed and odd and out of place, Bottom distracted by a marble statue of a fairy queen with an uncanny resemblance to Pfeiffer's Titania. Hoffman presents the ceremony with typical grand attention to detail, showing the wedding march within an expansive ballroom of gold with red curtains and candelabra, servants wearing powdered wigs. The outdoor celebration features musicians with guitar, accordion, woodwind, and bass, and the four lovers gather together at the head table with Hippolyta. Theseus reads entertainment options from the master of revels as Hoffman's camera pans the practicing performers, showing a variety of flamboyant acrobats and actors, with the six hempen homespuns wide-eyed and intensely nervous by a group of fire jugglers. When Quince announces that they will perform - "our play is preferred" - Hoffman expertly captures the comic reaction: Snout and Flute nearly faint, another actor tries to sneak off, and Wall attempts escape up a ladder. He is dragged back down to deliver a voice-quivering prologue - "the wittiest partition as ever I heard discourse" - forgetting a line and not hearing Quince's reminder until it is shouted in anger. Kline's Bottom bravely seizes his moment, wearing armor and a red robe - "cursed be thy stones" - but comically bare-legged. Their performance of Pyramus and Thisby is the usual fiasco, with Kline's Bottom knocking off Wall's stone hat, breaking character for asides, smashing his face into Flute's when they meet for a "kiss," rhyming "blood" "with "good" and using "deflowered" for "devoured," then swinging Starveling's dog - which has grabbed hold of Thisby's handkerchief - right into the arms of the Philostrate. After the audience laughs at Flute's Thisby falsetto and applauds the Lion's apology, the dog begins barking as Moon drops his lantern, and Kline's Bottom begins to really ham it up: "my soul is in the sky!" Director Quince drops his face into his hands at the debacle, and Hoffman manages a pleasant surprise within the typical slapstick shenanigans: Sam Rockwell's Flute, suddenly serious, reverts to his normal voice even when speaking as Thisby, and he speaks passionately and superbly, and the laughs stop, smiles fade from faces, and the audience leans forward to hear the raw emotion of a heartbroken lover. Rockwell's Flute pulls off his wig at Thisby's dying words ("adieu, adieu") and the stunned audience remains silent, Hippolyta in tears, until applause begins and rises into a thunder.
Hoffman concludes his film with a truly joyous moment, as the acting company explodes into triumph and rising music when they receive the backstage note - "very notably discharged" - from an impressed Theseus. Hoffman cuts to the twirling sparkle of Oberon's fairy fireflies - "trip away, make no stay" - then to the wedded lovers marveling at the fireflies dancing light, then to Theseus and Hippolyta dancing and kissing. The triumphant mechanicals, now not so rude, drunkenly push their cart onto the Monte Athena streets, Starveling's uninjured dog riding shotgun, and share a warm group embrace then a slurring song while they swing bottles of liquor and dance. Hoffman pans to a street cleaner, who turns to reveal himself as the Vulcan-eared Puck - "if we shadows have offended" - and look up at Bottom's bedroom window. Kline's Bottom peers outside at a fluttering blur of fireflies just outside his home, the brightest and largest a Titania-like Queen. The lights merge into the stars of the night sky and Kline looks self-satisfied, obviously with his artistic success as well as the attention he has received from the beautiful Queen of the Fairies, but there is a disturbing sense that he has gotten away with adultery (and is pleased with himself).
Tucci's Puck completes the scene with a twinkle in his eye - "so good night unto you all" - as he walks off with his street-cleaning broom, and the credits roll to arias from Felix Mendelssohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Giuseppe Verdi's "La Triviata." Hoffman's film is a visually and musically rich experience, with persistent emphasis on costume, art direction, and soundtrack, and while admittedly entertaining, the lighthearted series of love stories and madcap antics struggle to shine through the claustrophobically dense and laboriously paced style.