In creating a new version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, writer-director Michael Hoffman (Restoration, Soapdish) borrows two important ideas from Kenneth Branagh's 1993 adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing. For one, he moves the setting from classical Athens and environs to turn-of-the-century Tuscany, where the bicycle is just coming into vogue. And, like Branagh, Hoffman practices some stunt casting, mixing British stage actors with American actors of relatively limited stage experience. The result is gloriously satisfying to the eye, but it falls short in many other areas.

The use of Tuscany as a backdrop enables Hoffman to return to the play a sense of earthiness, sensuousness and pure physicality that is absent in so many productions of the play (like the 1935 Hollywood version directed by Max Reinhardt) that tend too much toward the ethereal. And indeed, the set design is absolutely ravishing. Unfortunately, the set design comes to dominate the film. It was instructive to note that at the screening I saw, everyone stayed through the very end of the credits, not to see who was involved in the production but to jot down the names of the towns used in the filming for immediate vacation planning. And the setting distracts us in another way; part of the essence of the play is the contrast of setting between the austerity of "civilized" Athens and the physical liberation of the forest. Having a "town" setting that is nearly as sensuous as the woods weakens this critical distinction.

In terms of casting, Hoffman actually fares slightly better than Branagh did. Certainly, there isn't a performance as howlingly bad as Keanu Reeves' Don John in Much Ado. Anna Friel's Hermia is particularly wonderful, as are Christian Bale and Dominic West as Demetrius and Lysander, respectively. Skilled comic actors like Max Wright and Bill Irwin inhabit the Mechanicals, and even Callista Flockhart manages to give Helena some heft. There are, however, some egregious miscasting. Stanley Tucci seems ill at ease as Puck, and the wonderful David Straithairn brings no strength or authority whatsoever to the part of Theseus. Ultimately, the problem lies not so much in miscast parts as in clashing styles of acting. For example, while the shifting sets of relationships among the lovers are mostly believable, Friel and Flockhart have such different styles that we never really believe for a second that this Helena and Hermia are close friends.

In the end, however, the film completely belongs to Kevin Kline's Bottom. Kline is such a superior actor that Hoffman is able to take some real risks with the character, giving him a depth that is only hinted at in the play. Hoffman gives this Bottom a wife who, though silent, clearly disapproves of both her husband's pomposity and his delusions of theatrical grandeur. This infuses nearly everything Bottom does with a certain pathos; rather than being played for purely comic effect, his love scene with Michelle Pfeiffer's ravishing Titania has a quality of wistful longing to it that is absent in most productions. Kline, who specializes in poking fun at hamminess while occasionally indulging in it himself, brings a vibrant new layer of feeling to the greatest of Shakespeare's hams.

Hoffman's other extremely successful interpolation comes in the Mechanicals' production, when Flute as Thisby is speaking over the body of Bottom's mostly dead Pyramus. In a moment of inspired spontaneity, Flute decides to play it straight and moves the audience to tears with Thisby's grief. As played by the superb Sam Rockwell, Flute's moment is a metatheatrical kick in the pants. It reminds us not only of the play's emphasis on artifice and theatricality, but it reminds Flute's audience of newlyweds just how thin the line between tragedy and comedy is, and how close the Lovers actually came to inflicting some serious harm upon one another. Along with Kline's performance, it is the one moment in the film that lifts the film above its overly busy and distracting design.

Hoffman's work is probably the best attempt ever to put A Midsummer Night's Dream on film, although that is not really saying much. It manages to combine a semblance of the balletic grace of the 1935 version with some of the down-and-dirtiness of Peter Hall's 1968 RSC film (while sparing us the latter's nearly unwatchable watered-down New Wave camera work). And while people looking to estivate in Tuscany might now have a harder time finding a rental, the Tuscan setting and the bicycles add little to the mix. In spite of some wonderful performances and unexpectedly transcendent moments, this Dream is far too earthbound, full of nice pieces that never quite come together. 

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