Extremely not awesome. Part of the problem is certainly that I don't care for Sondheim, as a rule. But this is a fairly weak dilution of A Midsummer Night's Dream, dramatically, and as interesting as a coffee-table book, cinematically. Elizabeth Taylor's thorough inability to sing is pretty impressive, and the way the couples shuffle and come back together is slightly fun. It's just not fun enough. The more it attempts to effervesce, as a light musical always must, the more it sinks leadenly.
Diana Rigg is the only aspect of this I cared for. She is beautiful and bossy and primly devastating. The other performers are strong enough, but they are definitely stage folk and not movie actors. The play is adapted with only moderate imagination for what film can do. End result is extraordinarily meh.
This musical is the source for "Send in the Clowns," and I have always had a dim understanding of that song's meaning. Seeing/listening to it in its full context, my understanding wasn't much clearer. It would not harm me if that song was wiped out of existence by some kind of time travel incident.
As I mentioned in the Equus post, it's interesting to me that Burton and Taylor, quite recently split up for good, each made movies from plays this year. Each film uses their talents differently; Taylor's talent for comedy, romance, and emotional stakes is well-used, even if her noncapable singing voice embarrasses her, while Burton plays a similar high-intensity dramatic role to the ones he's been playing for decades. It's not hard to know why he accepted his part, but why she accepted hers is a bit more mysterious.
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