Purely Joyful Movie!

just watch it!

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's been a long while since I've seen this, but bristling at the poor reviews I am moved to make a couple of remarks. One is that upon seeing it on public TV, I immediately purchased it and showed it to all my friends and family, who were similarly impressed. Both Othello and Iago are wonderfully inhabited by their actors. Two is that Davies elevates his diction and provides rhythm in his "modernizing" to the extent that I remember being moved to write embittered love poetry after watching it. (I know that the world doesn't need more embittered love poetry, but it is pretty cool that his language put me in that place.)I like my Shakespeare adaptations to be coherent and this setting is pertinent and coherent. All in all, an excellent experience.

Othello is set to burn the eyes of the viewers of this film. The bad depiction of Shakespeare's characters, and the terrible rendition of the love that Desi & John had, made this movie the horrendous filth that it is. By far, Othello, directed by Jeffery Saks, is beyond mediocre and atrocious. The movie Othello is a pitiful drama about the love between John and Desi. Their faithfulness to one another will be tested by the man's friend. In the opening scene of the film, it is clearly shown that the love between John and Desdemona is inseparable beyond belief. Moments later, Ben Jago, John's friend pops out into the screen scaring the viewers and showing them right away how much of a liar and power hungry person he is. By far, this movie was much more horrid than the Shakespeare novel itself. With that being said, it does have a miniscule amount of good parts. For example, the love that was shown between John and Desi, was depicted very well and it looked that the couple was so inseparable; just as it was explained in the book. Although the love between them was shown exceptionally well, it still did not show the jealously that Othello had between Cass and Desi as well as it should. Love, jealously, deceitfulness, this movie is based on all three of the main topics that were in the Shakespeare novel. The novel however, really explains how all of this came together much better than the movie could. For example, the conclusion of this story ends much more differently in the book than in the film. Much more detail is also put into the novel. This is why this film is such a disappointment, trust me, those who have read it will find it disappointing as well. In conclusion, this film was by far, the most horrendous depiction of a novel that has ever been put out by mankind. By avoiding to see this film, not only will viewers save themselves an hour two of their lives, but also save themselves an eye or two from the distasteful face of Ben Jago popping out at them.

After first reading the play, then watching the Fishburne version of Othello I was greatly put off by the use of Shakespearian language and by, what I found, a boring setting. I am not a great lover of Shakespeare, but find the modern adaptations wonderful. Othello was no different. I thought it was set out in a completely modern and more interesting way than the original play. Othello, as a police officer, becoming Commissioner for the Met was a fantastic slant on the original idea that he was general of an army. I loved Eccleston's performance of Jago, he showed a definite madness about his character which portrayed his actions to be caused by mentality as opposed to direct motives. I enjoyed this adaptations a lot!

I'm not much of a Masterpiece Theatre watcher, but I luckily stumbled on this fantastic version of Othello. Davies brilliant distillation of Shakespeare's plot, combined with great actors, and very effective direction give one faith in adaptations without the original text.It's easily superior to the recent 'O' as well as the Fishburne/Branagh 1995 version of the play.