Surprising

Rating: Null/10 (21 May 2012)

I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as i did. great acting and a very interesting and accessible adaptation. Redgrave is brilliant, Fiennes is also really good. My only criticism would be the woman who played one of the 'commoners' lubna azabal, some of the worst over-acting i have ever seen. really bad and distracting in her scenes. furthermore she and one man were the only two who spoke English with an (italian?) accent. i did not understand why this was necessary. we are told at the start it is rome yet the rest of the film is made up of British actors. not a problem per se, but why make two of the characters clearly non-British. it's a kind of Hollywood tokenism of making the audience aware 'this is supposed to be set in non-English speaking country'. always annoys me when they do this. either shoot the whole film in the language it is supposed to be set in, or make all the characters at least sound as if they are supposed to be speaking their mother tongue.The language clunks with the modern day setting too often. The modern day warfare doesn't help with the understanding of what is a fairly impenetrable play and if it doesn't help then what is the point.
other than that, great film. captivating!