Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? No.
Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? If you like and appreciate Shakespearean dialogue.
Secret ending? No.
Running time: 97 minutes (~1.5 hours)
Cymbeline” is a modern day adaptation of Shakespeare’s play of the same name. Instead of setting it in a royal court, however, it deals with the plots and corruption of a different type of king ー a drug kingpin. It stars Ed Harris (Cymbeline), Milla Jovovich (the Queen), Ethan Hawke (Lachimo), John Leguizamo (Pisanio), Penn Badgley (Posthumus), Anton Yelchin (Cloten), and Dakota Johnson (Imogen). It is rated NC-16.
While the stories, themes and archetypes found in Shakespearan plays may be timeless (why else have his works endured the centuries?), one thing isn’t – the dialogue. Most modern remakes or adaptations of Shakespearan classics wrestle with this dilemma. Do they keep the original dialogue that is hard to understand but so much richer in literary merit, or do they translate the dialogue into something more contemporary and understandable but with less of the literary gold available? “Cymbeline” has chosen the former, but it’s a questionable decision at best.
Highlights
Dakota Johnson plays an endearing and believable modern day Imogen
While the other characters deliver the archaic dialogue with a stiff, uncomfortable awkwardness, Dakota Johnson manages to lend a certain charm and sincerity to her lines, as unnatural as they may be. Somehow, she manages to marry a contemporary mindset and mentality with the olde English of yore, and provides the most compelling performance in the film.
Letdowns
Too many monologues turned into voice overs
While both narrative devices enable you to gain a clearer insight into the thoughts of the characters, they are also distinctly different in the effects they create. Unfortunately, “Cymbeline” treats the two as interchangeable. This results in a dry voice overs while characters stumble trying to look like they are thinking what’s being said – an unconvincing performance at best.
Contemporary songs amidst archaic dialogue
In an attempt to be hip and modern, the film uses several pop songs as part of the soundtrack. That is not a problem in and of itself – until you realize the lyrics are set to everyday lingo, while the rest of the characters in the film speak as if they were born centuries ago. This results in a jarring disconnect as one type of English is spoken one minute, while a different type is spoken the next.
Forced grit and violence
The characters, while living in a world of vice and villainy, generally come across as civilized and mild-mannered individuals. Even Cymbeline himself, the most ruthless of antagonists, would still hold himself to a moderate level of fisticuffs. So when the violence dials suddenly go up to eleven, it feels manufactured and staged. There’s no real reason for the violence to be ramped up to such a level at random points in the film, and the resulting feel is a censorship rating that doesn’t merit an actual consistent level of blood and gore in the film.
Strange soundtrack
As if the use of jarring contemporary soundtracks weren’t enough, the music choices in the film are also quite suspect. They don’t fit either the dialogue or the setting, making it yet another element that is artistic in isolation, but discordant when put together. There’s just no harmony in this film.
“Cymbeline” is an ambitious undertaking, to be sure, and has no lack of talent to draw from. But therein lies the problem – there’s no unifying vision to pull all these impressive components together. Without direction, the film, while made with high production values, just comes across as a pretentious mess of disparate elements.
“Cymbeline” opens in cinemas 30 April, 2014 (Thursday).
This review was also published on Yahoo Singapore.
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