SOURCE: Gleiberman, Owen. “O.” Entertainment Weekly, nos. 612-13 (7 September 2001): 132-33.

In the following review of the 2001 film adaptation O, set in a contemporary prep school, Gleiberman contends that the movie captures the mood and emotions of Shakespeare's play but that it fails to reach the level of true tragedy.

Doing a Shakespeare play without the pesky inconvenience of Shakespeare's language sounds a bit like trying to drive a car without gasoline. Add to that the prospect of Othello set within the confines of an elite Southern prep school, complete with up-and-coming Hollywood stars making the Bard “relevant” for a new multiculti millennium, and the whole thing, at a glance, may look as if it reeks of opportunism, of the ultimate in cynically chic teen-niche pandering. The first thing to say about O, therefore, is that the movie doesn't just appropriate characters and situations from Othello, updating them to...