THE MERCHANT OF VENICE - Is it worth watching the movie?

The Merchant of Venice Movie Poster

A movie version of “The Merchant of Venice” was made in 2004 which was directed by Michael Radford, but was released in Canada on January 21, 2005. It was filmed in the USA, Italy, Luxembourg, and UK. This wasn’t the first movie to be made about the play. In my opinion, it was a good movie. If you’ve read the play, you probably began to imagine how the scenes looked like and how the actors’ expressions and emotions were like. Well, this movie shows how you would’ve probably imagined the scenes and the characters in the movie.

Although I’m not that big of a Shakespeare fan and I don’t find the play or the storyline as interesting, I mean it’s still great, but I do have to give credit to the movie and the settings and characters.

The actors who played the characters were amazing. With Al Pacino playing Shylock, Lynn Collins as Portia, Jeremy Irons as Antonio, and Joseph Fiennes as Bassanio, it really made the movie more interesting. Their acting was great and they said their lines with passion, especially Shylock when he said his famous speech in III.i.49-62, which is the sympathy scene where his speech is about the injustice that the Jews receive. Also, in this movie, it is very easy to sympathize with Shylock once you are able to see the expression on his face and the pain he goes through, throughout the movie. 

While watching the movie, I was unable to make up my mind. Was Shylock the victim or was he the villain? The costumes were also very appealing and well made. It matched very well with the settings and the scenes. Again, the movie was just like I imagined the play as. 

In the beginning of the movie, there are Christians on a boat on a canal in Venice who are making a speech to everyone about how it is unrighteous and unlawful that the Jews are putting an interest in the money they lend. Just from the beginning, we can already guess the amount of injustice and inequality that the Jews receive. Facts about the intolerance for Jews are the first thing we read. Facts such as, how Jews were marked by having to wear a red hat. I think that this is one of the main differences that I noticed between the play and the movie because while reading the play, I didn’t know that Jews were marked by wearing a red hat. 

The accuracy of the 2004 movie version of The Merchant of Venice was on point. Like, you know how some movies try to recreate novels or plays, but the directors have totally changed some of the parts of a scene or even the whole scene? This isn’t one of those movies. There hasn’t been one part where I thought, “Wait, did that even happen?” I totally appreciate it when movies are accurate to the movie.

Overall, I think it is a good movie and the actors chosen to play the characters from the play make the movie more interesting. If you are actually interested in The Merchant of Venice but not much of a reader, then I suggest that you watch this movie because it is an accurate representation of the movie.