O [ 1/2]
A worthy addition to the canon. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated R (graphic violence, rape, profanity). At the 42nd Street E Walk, the Battery Park, the Lincoln Square, others.
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THE long-delayed “O” turns out to be an exceptionally intelligent and powerful contemporary adaptation of “Othello” that effectively moves Shakespearean plotting from the royal court to the basketball court.
Odin (Mekhi Phifer) may be the only black student at a private boarding school in the Deep South – but he’s also a hero because of his ball-handling skills, which have the team headed for the state finals.
He’s so popular that the white dean (John Heard) is squeamish about discouraging a romance between Odin, known to all simply as O, and the dean’s beautiful but headstrong daughter, Desi (Julia Stiles).
O is also loved as a son by his coach (a superb Martin Sheen) – a development that has the coach’s real son and O’s benched teammate, Hugo (Josh Hartnett), seething with jealousy.
Like Shakespeare’s Iago, Hugo plots O’s downfall by falsely suggesting that Desi is cheating on him with another member of the team (Andrew Keegan).
Hugo uses two other students (Elden Henson and Rain Phoenix) as pawns in an elaborate scheme to slowly drive O mad with jealously.
The motivation of these subsidiary characters isn’t as clear as it could be. But that’s a minor flaw in Brad Kaaya’s inventive screenplay, which retains the dramatic meat of Shakespeare’s play, if none of its language.
Director Tim Blake Nelson, who’s better known as an actor (“O Brother Where Art Thou?”), maintains dramatic tension and gets exceptional performances from all hands – especially Phifer, who commands the screen as the doomed O.
In her third stab at Shakespeare (after “10 Things I Hate About You” and “Hamlet”) and her second interracial romance (“Save the Last Dance”) in a row, Stiles shows why she’s one of the most emotionally honest young actresses working today.
The biggest surprise is Hartnett, whose unforgettable, searing turn as the scheming, smoldering Hugo is a stunning contrast to the mopey flyboy herecently played in “Pearl Harbor.”
“O” was shot more than two years ago, and its release was delayed for various reasons, including the Columbine school shootings and restrictions on the marketing of R-rated movies to teenagers.
This is a movie that really earns its R rating – there is a brutal rape scene and a bloody, violent finale that is as unnerving as it is true to the film’s Shakespearean roots.
None of this is gratuitous. “O” has things to say about racism, athletics and popularity that should give teenagers (and their parents) plenty to think about on the way home.
