Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

Cymbeline Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 16, 2015

It’s probably not a complete coincidence that Sons of Anarchy, a tale about a vicious biker gang in the town of Charming, California, was regularly described as being Shakespearian, while an actual Shakespeare play, his latter day tragedy Cymbeline, has now been transported into the world of biker gangs in this fitfully interesting but ultimately unconvincing film from Michael Almereyda, a Shakespeare revisionist who has previously modernized The Bard with his 2000 take on Hamlet. There’s a problem with this “mirror image,” though, one that does not reflect particularly well (sorry) on Cymbeline. Contrasting this “revisionism” with, say, the Ian McKellen Richard III, perhaps can help to elucidate why. Much like this Cymbeline, the McKellen Richard III modernizes the story and puts it in a completely unfamiliar context—except for the fact that Richard III retains its trappings of royalty, simply transporting the monarchy to something more akin to a fascist regime in the 1930s. By contrast, Cymbeline attempts to extract the royal subterfuges and machinations of the original play and then insert them into a biker gang scenario. It’s an odd fit at best, and one that probably calls attention to itself in a less than helpful way. Part of Richard III’s relative success was due to the fact that the modernization and recontextualization actually played directly into Shakespeare’s original formulation of a scheming, power mad would be monarch. What possible good does it do to stuff Cymbeline into a veritable Shakespearian The Wild One or in fact Sons of Anarchy, other than to draw attention to the fact that such a “stuffing” has been accomplished?

Perhaps surprisingly, prior to this 2014 outing, there really hadn’t been a feature film version of Cymbeline since at least the silent era (the IMDb lists a television movie from 1982). There’s probably a reason for that. As the commentary on this Blu-ray mentions, the original play can run for over three hours, and at times seems to be almost a “greatest hits” compilation of ideas and plot tropes Shakespeare utilized in some of his earlier works. Almereyda has stripped the story to its bare essence, albeit in a completely unfamiliar setting. Imogen (Dakota Johnson), daughter of (King, here motorcycle gang leader) Cymbeline (Ed Harris), is in love with commoner Posthumus (Penn Badgley). Cymbeline will have nothing of it, since whoever marries his daughter will inherit the throne. Instead Cymbeline is being proselytized by his wife, the Queen (Milla Jovovich), to have her son from a previous marriage, Cloten (Anton Yelchin), wed Imogen. Unbeknownst to Cymbeline, the nefarious Queen has a poisonous scenario in store for both Cymbeline and Imogen, thus ensuring her progeny’s ascension to the throne.

Playing out against this arc of “palace” intrigue is a frankly rather odd intersecting subplot involving Lachimo (Ethan Hawke), a misogynistic no-goodnik Posthumus meets after having been banished by Cymbeline. Lachimo argues that women are inherently of loose moral fiber, and he bets Posthumus that he can bed Imogen, something Posthumus finds impossible to believe. Lachimo gets back to “court” and proceeds to attempt to make good on his wager, but when Imogen proves to be more virtuous than the average virgin, he resorts to a bit of subterfuge, in one of the funnier updates Almereyda has pasted on the proceedings.

Almereyda is to be commended for not seriously tinkering with Shakespeare’s script, other than dramatically redacting it and adding a couple of interpolated bits (as, frankly, was exactly the case with Richard III). Performances are generally very good, though it has to be accepted that the contemporizing of the setting tends to support more naturalistic actors like Ed Harris as a matter of course. A large supporting cast also includes John Leguizamo and Bill Pullman, though often in such limited capacities that they don’t really have much of a chance to strut their stuff. The ultimate question faced by this Cymbeline is: what exactly is gained by shifting this story to the present day and in the milieu of a biker gang? Unfortunately Almereyda, while quite facile in setting up this query, proves to be less successful in being able to actually answer it.

Cymbeline Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cymbeline is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Shot on a relatively paltry budget, director Almereyda and director of photography Tim Orr sometimes try to mask their lack of opulent sets and costumes by shooting in dimly lit or downright dark environments, something that tends to cast a pall on superb levels of fine detail. When the film ventures into the bright sunlight, things perk up measurably, with a vividly saturated and accurate looking palette and excellent fine detail (see screenshots 3, 12 and 15 for some good examples of the brightly lit moments in the film). While the darker sequences are at least relatively less convincing in terms of providing overwhelming amounts of fine detail, in certain lighting conditions, things are still quite commendable (see screenshot 2). At least some of the interior sequences are bathed in a kind of buttery ambience which tends to smooth over fine detail in midrange shots, while maintaining a baseline of excellent general detail. There is a certain murkiness in many of the darker sequences, though, with inadequate shadow detail making things seem downright hazy at times.

Cymbeline Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cymbeline offers a serviceable lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that cleanly and clearly supports dialogue, but which has few real opportunities to really exploit any significant surround activity. Some of the outdoor material is populated with lifelike ambient environmental effects, and there is occasional underscoring that also offers some sense of immersion, but this is a relatively restrained mix, especially when one considers the rebooted context involving biker gangs. Fidelity is excellent and there are no problems of any kind to report.

Cymbeline Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Screenwriter/Director Michael Almereyda, Actor Ethan Hawke and Anthony Holden. Almereyda confesses up front to never having done a commentary before, and thus has insisted on being joined by Shakespeare expert Holden, which turns out to be a very good decision. While some elements are a bit painful (Holden correcting Almereyda's pronunciation of "Cloten" being just one example), this is a really interesting discussion for the most part which addresses several issues of adapting such an unwieldy piece. Hawke's comments were recorded separately and edited in at various parts.


• Behind the Scenes of Cymbeline (1080p; 13:01) is a decent EPK with some okay interviews.


• Interviews with Cast and Crew:

  Ethan Hawke (1080p; 3:47)

  Dakota Johnson (1080p; 2:57)

  Ed Harris (1080p; 2:12)

  John Leguizamo (1080p; 3:54)

  Anton Yelchin (1080p; 3:44)

  Penn Badgley (1080p; 2:45)

• Cymbeline Trailer (1080p; 2:03)

Cymbeline Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cymbeline sports an interesting idea, but unfortunately that idea does little to support the already somewhat difficult text of the play. In fact the use of a biker gang seems almost a desperate attempt to link this "update" to Sons of Anarchy, when the ironic thing is the Kurt Sutter series was typically compared to Hamlet, not Cymbeline. Performances are generally quite good throughout, and technical merits are generally strong for those considering a purchase.