By Betsy Sharkey
FILM: Cymbeline
CAST: Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Milla Jovovich, Dakota Johnson
DIRECTION: Michael Almereyda
Surreal and au courant to a fault, Cymbeline, starring Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Milla Jovovich, Dakota Johnson and Penn Badgley, is a mash-up of social media shortcomings and Shakespearean tragedy that becomes as much a tale of cinematic ambition gone awry as anything the Bard intended.
Writer-director Michael Almereyda’s choice to translate one of the playwright’s less familiar works was a bold one. Its layers of deception rest on the manipulation of perception, which makes it ideal for recasting in an Instagram age with its ease of spreading misinformation.
None of this is much of a stretch for the director, who drew deserved praise for 2000’s Hamlet, which starred Hawke in the title role and used contemporary New York City as a staging ground.
Like Almereyda’s take on “Hamlet”, the language of Shakespeare is retained, though significantly pared. The plot, however, is very much there, and in a sense that is where the problems for the film begin. The political machinations and romantic intrigues are extensive and entangled from beginning to end.
The main power player is King Cymbeline (Harris), who heads the Briton motorcycle gang in a decaying American town.
The King has decided to resist the Roman tax, with police official Caius Lucius (Vondie Curtis-Hall) the chief collector.
On the romantic front, Cymbeline’s protégé is Posthumus (Badgley), a handsome but penniless skateboarder and the secret love of Cymbeline’s daughter Imogen (Johnson). His second wife, the Queen (Jovovich), is scheming to make a match between Imogen and her son Cloten (Anton Yelchin) instead.
Then out of left field the key villain, Iachimo (Hawke), enters. He shows up in town and bets Posthumus that he can deflower the virtuous but spirited Imogen in just one meeting. Posthumus thinks it’s easy money, and it is, but the selfie Iachimo takes of a sleeping Imogen sends him into a murderous rage.
One of the leather-jacketed gang members, Pisanio (John Leguizamo), a soft-hearted thug, is charged with the task of murdering Imogen. Instead he helps her fake her death and escape the town disguised as a boy. She soon stumbles into and is saved by Belarius (Delroy Lindo) and his two blond, blue-eyed boys, who are actually the kidnapped sons of Cymbeline. And most of the complicated killing that is coming hasn’t started.
Even in contemporary English, it would be hard to keep track. As to the decision to stay with the Shakespearean text, as lyrical as it is, few of the actors beyond Hawke — so good with those tongue-twisting phrases — can manage it. — Los Angeles Times/TNS
Gripping murder-for-hire tale
By Roger Moore
FILM: The Living
CAST: Fran Kranz, Jocelin Donahue, Kenny Wormald, Chris Mulkey
DIRECTION: Jack Bryan
Sir Alfred once said: “The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.” Committing this truism to memory would still serve any film student well.
It’s stunning how few filmmakers remember that when writing, casting and producing their independent films. Write a weighty villain, spend the cash on hiring a quality heavy to play him or her.
Writer-director Jack Bryan learned that for his feature The Living. He had a lean, gripping murder-for-hire tale with a sharp and troubling undertow of what it takes to be a man in some corners of the culture. But it wouldn’t work without Chris Mulkey, playing a heartless sociopath ex-con hired to kill a man.
Mulkey’s credits go back to 48 Hrs and The Long Riders, through TV’s Twin Peaks to Grimm and Scandal. There are echoes of every hard man he’s ever portrayed in Howard, the redneck murderer-philosopher Gordon (Kenny Wormald) pays $2,000 to punish his abusive drunk of a brother-in-law.
Teddy (Fran Kranz) woke up one morning with a hangover, bruised fists and a bloodied finger. Somebody took his wedding ring off after he passed out.
That someone was his willowy wife (Jocelin Donahue). She ran off to mom’s house covered in bruises. Mom (veteran character actress Joelle Carter) is livid when her daughter Molly returns to the creep. She’s even madder at the cowering son (Wormald) who did nothing to stop it.
“I hope you’re half as ashamed of you as I am.”
Gordon mouths off to a co-worker, the co-worker says he knows a guy who knows a guy, and next thing you know the kid has set events in motion he has no control over.
Bryan sends Gordon from rural Pennsylvania, the film’s setting, to Mississippi, in search of Howard. And then he has events back home supersede the mission Gordon has undertaken. Molly has her own ways of punishing Teddy.
“You’re not my husband again until I say so,” she growls. He has to court her. First date? Everybody’s favourite restaurant. She wants their friends to see what he did to her.
And Teddy takes it, because maybe he’s not a bad man, maybe it’s the alcohol that’s the source of their issues. Mom’s lectures go unheeded.
Mulkey is chilling, first moment to last, in this brutal, blood-stained film noir. - TNS
DVDs courtesy:
Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha
A fun, family feature
By Rick Bentley
FILM: Legends Of Oz: Dorothy’s Return
CAST: Voices of Lea Michele, Martin Short, Hugh Dancy, Oliver Platt, Bernadette Peters, Megan Hilty, Dan Aykroyd, Patrick Stewart, Jim Belushi
DIRECTION: Will Finn and Dan St Pierre
Lea Michele and Megan Hilty star in a feature film musical based on characters from The Wizard of Oz. Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return is a fun, family feature that benefits from the pair’s strong singing voices.
This time, we’re off to see the wizard in a story based on the book, Dorothy of Oz, written 25 years ago by Roger S Baum, the great-grandson of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz author L Frank Baum.
Dorothy’s called back to the Emerald City when the Jester (voiced by Martin Short), the brother of the Wicked Witch, uses dark magic to turn residents of Oz into marionettes. Only the good magic of Dorothy (Michele) can cut the strings on the Jester’s devilish plan.
As with the original Oz story, this film is less about the final battle and more about the journey. Dorothy meets another group of misfits who are all looking for a little redemption in their lives. Wiser (Oliver Platt) is an owl who doesn’t give a hoot about his weight. Marshal Mallow (Hugh Dancy) is torn between duty and love. Tugg (Patrick Stewart) is an ancient tree looking to prove he still has worth. The China Princess (Hilty) needs some humility.
Although the screenplay by Adam Balsam and Randi Barnes wanders off the Yellow Brick Road of Baum’s book, it does keep to the central story about love, courage and happiness. The opening and closing scenes are a bit heavy handed, but they don’t take away from the overall strong story.
Directors Will Finn and Dan St Pierre competently present this story through computer-generated animation. — The Fresno Bee/TNS
DVDs courtesy:
Kings Electronics, Doha
