Hamlet 2
Directed by Andrew Fleming
Some of the qualities that distinguished Alexander Payne’s Election—a high school satire that also exposed social values—are also apparent in Hamlet 2 when a high school dramatic production becomes a vision of our almost forgotten cultural aspiration.
British immigrant and failed Hollywood screenwriter Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) directs that school play, having wound up teaching theater at West Mesa High School in Tucson, AZ., where the apathetic students outnumber the apple-polishing go-getters. The outsider’s perspective reveals that Quality, as an ideal, ranks behind fame and contempt—even for Coogan’s haughty and silly Marschz.
But Hamlet 2 rises above cynical derision. As Marschz tries to inspire his charges, his personal rebirth becomes part of their renaissance. That’s the big story inside this modest comedy. Marschz’s revamped, musical version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet avoids the catastrophe of Baz Luhrmann’s demographic-pandering 1996 Romeo + Juliet. Marschz doesn’t teach students what Hamlet is about so much as revitalize their idea of theater—a renewal of imagination and possibility.
Not caustic nor sentimental, Hamlet 2’s sharp, wily social lampoon gets funnier as it goes along; expanding its focus outside the high school sphere to comment on the probability of luck, failure, hope for all the characters—even Marschz’s surly wife (Catherine Keener) and a freeloading boarder (David Arquette). One of its best points—and one of the brightest movie moments of the year—is Elisabeth Shue’s participation not just as herself but as a fortysomething Hollywood has-been. She redefines what “celebrity” is worth and redeems herself.
Hamlet 2’s moral foundation is an exuberant surprise. In the Apatow era, movie comedy has sunk so low that we’re almost accustomed to scuzziness as a national characterization—partly because we no longer connect to our cultural heritage. Director Andrew Fleming, his co-screenwriter Pam Brady and the producers Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa understand our need to rise and encourage it by satirizing the rock bottom no one really believes in. That’s the point of the film’s unexpected—but absolutely necessary—parody of Erin Brockovich in a rickety amateur production that recalls Max Fischer’s movie-based playlets in Rushmore. But this isn’t an indie-movie gimmick like the Wes Anderson steals in Juno; rather, Hamlet 2 asserts the rankness of Erin Brockovich as a cultural landmark we need to surpass.
That makes Hamlet 2 a political film. Remaking Hamlet in Gen-Y terms proves as wacky as those stage-show parodies in Todd Graff’s Camp and the Farrelly Brothers’ Stuck on You as well as the puppet show in Forgetting Sarah Marshall—but they're all pageants of community and personal ambition.
Even the crazily incorporated Jesus and resurrection jokes express an inchoate spiritual yearning: There’s regret for the play’s many deaths—a humane response that comes gloriously out of left field after the slapstick mortality of Pineapple Express. In Hamlet 2, our culture’s survival is linked with Shakespeare’s. That’s as good as any political platform in 2008.
Directed by Andrew Fleming
Some of the qualities that distinguished Alexander Payne’s Election—a high school satire that also exposed social values—are also apparent in Hamlet 2 when a high school dramatic production becomes a vision of our almost forgotten cultural aspiration.
British immigrant and failed Hollywood screenwriter Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) directs that school play, having wound up teaching theater at West Mesa High School in Tucson, AZ., where the apathetic students outnumber the apple-polishing go-getters. The outsider’s perspective reveals that Quality, as an ideal, ranks behind fame and contempt—even for Coogan’s haughty and silly Marschz.
But Hamlet 2 rises above cynical derision. As Marschz tries to inspire his charges, his personal rebirth becomes part of their renaissance. That’s the big story inside this modest comedy. Marschz’s revamped, musical version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet avoids the catastrophe of Baz Luhrmann’s demographic-pandering 1996 Romeo + Juliet. Marschz doesn’t teach students what Hamlet is about so much as revitalize their idea of theater—a renewal of imagination and possibility.
Not caustic nor sentimental, Hamlet 2’s sharp, wily social lampoon gets funnier as it goes along; expanding its focus outside the high school sphere to comment on the probability of luck, failure, hope for all the characters—even Marschz’s surly wife (Catherine Keener) and a freeloading boarder (David Arquette). One of its best points—and one of the brightest movie moments of the year—is Elisabeth Shue’s participation not just as herself but as a fortysomething Hollywood has-been. She redefines what “celebrity” is worth and redeems herself.
Hamlet 2’s moral foundation is an exuberant surprise. In the Apatow era, movie comedy has sunk so low that we’re almost accustomed to scuzziness as a national characterization—partly because we no longer connect to our cultural heritage. Director Andrew Fleming, his co-screenwriter Pam Brady and the producers Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa understand our need to rise and encourage it by satirizing the rock bottom no one really believes in. That’s the point of the film’s unexpected—but absolutely necessary—parody of Erin Brockovich in a rickety amateur production that recalls Max Fischer’s movie-based playlets in Rushmore. But this isn’t an indie-movie gimmick like the Wes Anderson steals in Juno; rather, Hamlet 2 asserts the rankness of Erin Brockovich as a cultural landmark we need to surpass.
That makes Hamlet 2 a political film. Remaking Hamlet in Gen-Y terms proves as wacky as those stage-show parodies in Todd Graff’s Camp and the Farrelly Brothers’ Stuck on You as well as the puppet show in Forgetting Sarah Marshall—but they're all pageants of community and personal ambition.
Even the crazily incorporated Jesus and resurrection jokes express an inchoate spiritual yearning: There’s regret for the play’s many deaths—a humane response that comes gloriously out of left field after the slapstick mortality of Pineapple Express. In Hamlet 2, our culture’s survival is linked with Shakespeare’s. That’s as good as any political platform in 2008.
