The curse of the Shakespeare adaptation struck again, and hard, at Cymbeline.
Cymbeline is the 8th feature film and 2nd Shakespeare adaptation featuring Ethan Hawke directed by Michael Almereyda, a director mostly of shorts and documentaries and otherwise occasional wannabe cool/designer fantastic/horror features I either didn’t see or forgot.
Cymbeline tells a story you can google. I hadn't seen the play or any adaptation of it before so I didn't know it. I still don’t.
Cymbeline suffers the fate of many theatre adaptations, namely breaking time/space unity in an attempt to be “cinematic” and trying to “update” Shakespeare by staging it in contemporary (in this instance grungy USA) sets. I hasten to clarify that in The MacMahonian's book a film isn't good or bad depending on its putative fidelity to the letter or spirit of the original book or play or whatever. In The MacMahonian's book, whatever works, works. This doesn't. Not for want of trying, from eclectic soundtrack music (from reggae to modern Gaelic lyric, wherever inappropriate) to iPads, smartphones and Ed Harris in a black biker leather jacket. It only makes things worse. Plus, there may be more ridiculous thing than actors affecting contemporary urban hipster postures and delivery while reciting Shakespeare, but that's still no reason to do it. One would expect them to have learned by now, but apparently they didn't.
Dramatically flat, inscrutable and soporific, Cymbeline's only consolation is it is in numerous, although not illustrious, company.