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Othello was never my favorite of Shakespeare's tragedies, but there's some good material there. As long as we're adapting Shakespeare, the idea of placing it in the context of an upper-class Southern prep school seems to me, at least at first glance, to be a potentially interesting one, and that's what O does. Unlike Baz Luhrman's Romeo+Juliet (which I liked very much), however, O does not adopt Shakespeare's original language for its dialogue, choosing instead a screenplay that relies on modern vernacular for its dialogue. Of course that means that, unless the substituted dialogue has its own strength and beauty (and by and large it doesn't in this case), the production can no longer rely on one of the manifest virtues of Shakespeare--his potent, oft magical language--and instead has to lean on its plot, characters, tone, and so forth. O manages some degree of success in these areas, but it's not an unqualified success.
The title character is Odin (also known as "O" to the screaming fans in the stands at the high school games in which he stars), the only black student at an exclusive private school. His friend Hugo (the Iago analogue) is also a member of the basketball team, as well as the son of the coach (Martin Sheen, doing his very best Bobby Knight impression as Duke Goulding (nice name!) and standing in for the Duke of Venice). The object of Odin's affections, and eventually of his destructive jealousy, is Desi, the well-liked daughter of the school's Dean.
Some of the things that the film does right follow directly from its adherence to its source material. The relationship between Odin and Desi is nicely portrayed at the start. They seem genuinely in love, sharing a tender affection and providing to one another a source of mutual support, without a lot of the external status bullshit that seems occasionally to accompany high school relationships. Odin is clearly important and looked up to, and there isn't any overt racism surrounding his presence at the school, which makes the subtle currents bubbling under the surface more powerful in their effect. For instance, the Dean gets an anonymous call (instigated, of course, by Hugo) telling him that Odin has been forcing himself on his daughter Desi. This is the first the Dean has heard of the relationship, and when he confronts Odin in the Coach's office, the old specter of black men preying on white women clearly lurks in the background.
Josh Hartnett is suitably evil as Hugo. The movie perhaps tries a little bit too hard to suggest that his motivation arises from his envy of the adoration that Odin receives and, moreover, from his estrangement from a demanding and authoritarian father. In the end, though, just as in the play, the intensity of his malevolence is simply inexplicable. He schemes, he lies, he plots to bring about misery and ruin. Mekhi Phifer does a believable job showing the transition from a good, strong man to a murderer, as buried insecurities and a jealousy founded on illusion slowly consume him. For me, there's something fundamentally difficult to believe about that transition, but that's not Phifer's fault--I just can't plug into the equation that says that sexual jealousy, no matter how corrosive, must lead to what is essentially an "honor" killing. It's a code that I don't understand.
O is hard to watch, for the same reason that all classic tragedies are hard to watch. There's an inescapable sense of gathering doom that grows in intensity and colors even the early scenes of relative tranquility with a sure knowledge of the coming fall. It also contains some violent material, obviously, most notably a sexual encounter roughly half way through that turns unexpectedly rough and makes for uncomfortable viewing. To its credit, it eschews the path of the pat morality play that might have resulted had it chosen to focus more obviously and explicitly on the topic of racism, and looks rather to the flawed and fallible humanity at the center of its story.
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