O
A modernized retelling of William Shakespeare's +Othello, O changes its setting to an elite private school in the American South. Odin (Mekhi Phifer) is the only black student at Palmetto Grove and also the star basketball player, with hopes of reaching the NBA. A popular student, he is dating Desi Brable (Julia Stiles), the daughter of the school's dean (John Heard), and they are deeply devoted to each other despite their different backgrounds. His best friend Hugo (Josh Hartnett) is a starter on the basketball team, and the son of the hard-driving coach Duke Goulding (Martin Sheen), who considers Odin as much his son as Hugo. Hugo is jealous of Odin's widespread popularity, so he hatches a scheme to ruin Odin's reputation with the help of Roger (Elden Henson), his rich roommate who will do anything to be popular and get Desi's attention. Through carefully planned revenge, he begins to make Odin believe that Desi is carrying out an affair with teammate Michael (Andrew Keegan). As Odin begins to receive merely coincidental signs to prove it, he begins to slowly lose his grounding and turns to Hugo for help, not knowing that he is being set up. As the basketball season comes to a close, Odin's jealousy begins to consume him, resulting in the loss of everything he cares about the most. O was sometime actor Tim Blake Nelson's directorial follow-up to his well-received debut Eye of God. more..
Director: Tim Blake Nelson
Starring: Mekhi Phifer, Josh Hartnett, Julia Stiles, Elden Henson, Andrew Keegan
A sign of O's effectiveness is that it works regardless of whether you know Shakespeare's play.
Exceptionally intelligent and powerful contemporary adaptation.
To an astonishing degree, O gets the tragic Shakespeare mood, that somber stentorian passion born of hidden slivers of ambition and betrayal.
A good film for most of the way, and then a powerful film at the end, when, in the traditional Shakespearean manner, all of the plot threads come together, the victims are killed, the survivors mourn, and life goes on.
O has one advantage over "Othello" -- since it's a new movie, not a classic, it has the power to surprise.
Best Director
Seattle International Film Festival (2001)
Tim Blake Nelson
Tokyo International Film Festival (2001)
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