Love's Labour's Lost is a 2000 British musical romantic comedy film written, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, based on the comic play of the same name by William Shakespeare.

[1][2] The cast includes Shakespearean veterans such as Timothy Spall, Richard Briers and Geraldine McEwan, alongside Hollywood actors Alicia Silverstone and Matthew Lillard and Broadway and West End stars such as Nathan Lane and Jimmy Yuill.

This, however, is a standard feature of Branagh's Shakespeare adaptations; his Hamlet contains many non-speaking walk-on roles that are not included in the original play, but are mentioned in the cast list.

The released version retains only about a quarter of Shakespeare's lines; although Branagh managed to include all seventeen of the original speaking roles, some (most notably among the lower-class characters) are cut almost to nothing.

"[4]Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times complained that the film "should be fun but isn't... worst of all perhaps is its smug air of pleasure at how clever it thinks it's being."

But the leads (Silverstone and Nivola) were generally panned; Stanley Kauffmann, who had been highly complimentary of Branagh's four-hour film version of Hamlet, called them "inadequate in every way."

Kauffmann and Simon both noted that the film's ending, in which newsreel footage shows the men going off to fight in World War II, was grotesquely at odds with the frothy tone of the movie it concluded.

Elley described the film as a "luscious labor of love" saying, "anyone with an open mind and a hankering for the simple pleasures of Tinsletown's Golden Age will be rewarded with 90-odd minutes of often silly, frequently charming and always honest entertainment.

"[5] Scott also gave the film a lukewarm review, calling the "gee-whiz amateurism" part of the movie's charm, stating "Even though Love's Labour's Lost is, in showbiz terms, a turkey stuffed with chestnuts, you wouldn't trade it for a pot of gold.

Berardinelli gave the film three out of four stars, calling it "about 1/3 Shakespeare, 1/3 song-and-dance, and 1/3 ribald slapstick" and describing the balance as "awkward, but the overall result is strangely appealing."

He concluded, "Although Love's Labour's Lost does not score the kind of complete success that Branagh has achieved with his other Shakespeare adaptations, it is a welcome addition, not only because it represents the first time the play has been brought to the screen, but because it shows the lengths to which the director is willing to stretch the envelope.