Love's Labour's Lost

Love's Labour's Lost (2000) is a musical comedy directed by Kenneth Branagh — watch it online on iFILM. Branagh transplants Shakespeare's play into the eve of World War II and turns it into a tribute to classic Hollywood musicals, threading in songs by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Gershwin between the screwball misunderstandings.

A young king and his three friends swear a solemn oath: three years of scholarly celibacy, no women allowed. That vow lasts roughly until Alicia Silverstone arrives at the castle gates as the French princess, bringing her ladies-in-waiting and wrecking every good intention on the premises. Alessandro Nivola, Matthew Lillard, and Adrian Lester play the hapless suitors who court their loves in secret while desperately pretending they feel nothing. It is a lighter, sillier Shakespeare than usual — part period farce, part song-and-dance revue — and the newsreel footage stitched throughout gives it a bittersweet edge that most rom-coms skip entirely. Stream Love's Labour's Lost (2000) online on iFILM.