A pale, unsatisfying shadow of "Romeo & Juliet", William Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" has never been regarded as one of his finer plays. For someone like me whose patience for the Bard is limited already, the story's exclusion of logical plotting in favor of chance and warmed-over aspects of Shakespeare's most cherished plays is too much to bear. Nothing is going to change that Cymbeline is pulling from pretty weak source material, and all the modern trappings, talented cast, and product placement writer/director Michael Almereyda brings to his updated version can't save it.
Almereyda's familiarity with Shakespeare stretches back to his modern take on Hamlet, a more successful effort than Cymbeline yet still pretty overrated. He had a sturdier framework to build from, though. Shakespeare's best works are timeless reflections on humanity, and Almereyda was able to capture that, even when placing "Hamlet" in a corporate setting. That strong source material is a must when bringing Shakespeare's dialogue into modern context. Baz Luhrmann and most recently Joss Whedon were able to pull it off masterfully with Romeo + Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing. Cymbeline's preservation of lousy text does him no favors, and makes for an odd mix of clashing styles. For instance, the film is set in modern times (Obama's face is splashed on TV screens for emphasis) but the main characters are a bunch of 1960s-style biker gangs. Ed Harris plays the titular character, the leather-jacketed leader of the Briton gang. Almereyda has replaced literal royalty with the upper echelons of biker culture, which is in itself a poor decision. Milla Jojovich plays the Queen, Cymbeline's scheming second wife. She wants her oafish, utterly useless son Cloten (Anton Yelchin) to marry Cymbeline's pretty daughter Imogen (Fifty Shades of Grey's Dakota Johnson), but she is secretly wed to the unfortunately-named Posthumous (Penn Badgley). The film begins with a lackluster rundown of these facts, before revealing that Cymbeline has just learned of his daughter's marriage.
Almereyda sticks so closely to the source material that he never even bothers to update the story's questionable respect for the fairer sex. Banished, Posthumous encounters the untrustworthy Iachimo (Ethan Hawke), and enters into a wager that he can't seduce and have sex with Imogen during their first encounter. Iachimo meets her and, using his trusty IPad, tricks Posthumous into believing she was unfaithful. After first betting on his wife's fidelity, Posthumous now demands that she be murdered for her supposed betrayal. Is this guy a catch or what? Of course it doesn't happen, and through various convoluted means Imogen begins dressing like a boy, only to encounter a banished friend (Delroy Lindo) of Cymbeline's who has secretly been raising his two sons for twenty years. What the f**k??
Unfortunately, the knotty plot never untangles in any way that makes sense, culminating in a ridiculous finale where every storyline converges in a hail of bullets, fire, and boring exposition. Almereyda never gives us a reason why this particular Shakespeare story is relevant for today, and thus worthy of being retold. Perhaps he watched too much Sons of Anarchy? The film was once titled Anarchy, after all. Maybe he figured adding a ton of product placement (Apple should be given a co-starring credit) would make up for all the emotion the story lacks? The cast seem just as lost with it as we are. Harris is a great actor but he looks plain silly in his vintage leather jacket and shades, trying his best to be what he thinks a gang leader should be. Badgley is unremarkable (a recurring issue for him), Jojovich is given precious little time to be evil, and Yelchin doesn't appear to have a grasp on the dialogue at all. It's not surprising that Hawke, who starred in Almereyda's Hamlet, is the most comfortable in his role. But what may come as a shock is how good Dakota Johnson turns out to be. She has a similar doe-eyed innocence that she brought in Fifty Shades of Grey. Unfortunately, torturous screenplays continue to be a problem.The suggestion has been out there that Shakespeare wrote Cymbeline as a deliberate jab at his previous work; that he had grown bored of it and thus felt it worthy of being mocked. That may or may not be true, but Almereyda doesn't give us any reason to look at Cymbeline as a serious piece of work.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
