Cymbeline

 Cymbeline is a version of Shakespeare's late play, apparently produced for FX.  The play is fantastically complex and parts of the text seem corrupt or, at least, inexplicable.  The plot is dense with bizarre incongruities and Renaissance mannerist tics -- there is a woman who cross-dresses to disguise herself from enemies, two royal sons raised by a noble peasant woodsman,  poisons that feign death, a corpse that can't be identified (and is, therefore, misidentified) because missing its head, and a "chastity test" in which a noble young man encourages his vicious comrade to attempt to rape his betrothed.  None of this makes any sense today and, probably, puzzled viewers in the early 17th century as well.  It's impossible to recite the plot because you can't keep its devious intricacies in mind -- it suffices to say that it has something to do with the Romans demanding tribute from the Britons and a Gothic family of English nobility in which an evil stepmother is plotting to poison her stepdaughter and in which a stepson embarks on an expedition to rape his stepsister.  Some critics claim that the long closing scene resolves somewhere between eight and 12 (depending on how you count) conflicts in the plot.  This is a bravura performance by Shakespeare of the kind that one must admire and, also, fervently hope to never see again anywhere and on any stage.  In short, Cymbeline is not an obvious choice for a made-for-TV movie even as a vanity project for various celebrated Hollywood stars.  (Michael Almerayda directed this 2015 film.)   At the time the movie was produced, a popular TV show was the motorcycle gang saga The Sons of Anarchy -- accordingly, the film was originally styled something like Anarchy:  ride or die.)

Shakespeare is rarely presented with fidelity to the time and place depicted in his plays.  (I'm no purist and this doesn't matter for me. Shakespeare's theater is not reliable history in any event and the story of Cymbeline, a pre-Arthurian King, takes place in some kind of Wonderland in any event.)  In this iteration of the play, Ed Harris is the leader of a motorcycle gang called the Britons.  This makes as much sense, I suppose, as any other construction put on the play and does allow for some photogenic leather and stud costumes.  Ethan Hawke plays the evil Iachimo, a cousin to Othello's Iago, who attempts to seduce the young hero Posthumous' fiancee, the pure Imogen.  Hawke is effectively villainous.  Imogen is played by a comely girl-next-door actress Dakota Johnson -- she's not convincing as a young man, but this is also not a disguise that is meant to be taken seriously.  (The play is a late Romance and narrative plausibility is not its strong suit.)  The loyal and noble Pisanio, who is like the retainers in King Lear who retain faithful to their liege (even when he acts in a demented way) is played by John Leguizamo, one of those character actors that you see about once a week, but can't recall by name.  He stands up manfully to torture and looks good imprisoned naked in a small iron cage.  The wicked stepmother and Queen is played by the bland Milla Jovovich.  The huntsman, Belarius, who is raising as his own children Cymbeline's two long-lost sons is portrayed by the ever-effective Delroy Lindo.  Lindo is a Black man and the show takes pride in its color-blind casting, something which doesn't really work well with Shakespeare because family relationships (and, therefore, family resemblances) are integral to his convoluted plots.  There's a risible scene in which Lindo, who is Black as the Ace of Spades, reveals that the two blonde lads that he has been raising "are not (his) natural-born blood kin."  Really? Who would have thought such a thing?

The movie is designed as a compilation of greatest hits from Cymbeline, probably a merciful approach to this work as far as a theater-audience is concerned.  (The play contains much complex and beautiful poetry, but it's hard to appreciate the verse when rattled-off in a theater.)  The central element of this iteration of the play is the famous lyric elegy "Fear no More" -- this is a song mourning the death of "golden boys and girls" who come to dust to be "chimney sweeps", a justly beautiful lyric.  In the movie, we hear the song performed to some astringent modernist music in a huge and empty quarry where Imogen in her coma is resting next to the headless body of Leontes who came to grief in his quest to rape her.  Earlier we have seen, Posthumous making a wood cut of a girl standing next to a grinning skeleton with the words "Fear No More" emblazoned on the  image.  For some reason, the story is imagined as taking place on or before Halloween; hence, there are people with scary masks stalking about.  The action happens in ordinary houses and parking lots in nondescript industrial neighborhoods that are, during the final scene, strewn with dead bodies.  There's a nice scene early in the film in which the cops as Romans demand tribute from the Britons (is this supposed to be bribes?)  The defiant Cymbeline with his evil Queen (who has put him up to this stunt) and wicked Leontes propose to pay off the Romans with Hershey kisses, a nice notion, that does not amuse the Romans.  The play, as well as the movie, don't really accord any retribution to the nasty Iachimo who has made an attempt at the honor of Imogen and, then, slandered her despite her virtue -- this unsavory wager is the narrative engine in the first half of the play and involves the bad guy hiding in Imogen's bedchamber in a trunk and, then, taking selfies with the sleeping girl on his cell-phone (so as to prove her faithlessness).  You expect something really bad to happen to Iachimo but the movie ends with him in handcuffs but unscathed.  Cymbeline, who has agreed to pay tribute to the Romans (now that he's no longer hen-pecked by his wicked wife), pronounces a general amnesty which I assume applies to Iachimo as much as to anyone else.  I kept waiting for someone to flee the stage "pursued by a bear" but, then, realized that I had confused the implausible plot of Cymbeline with the equally implausible plot of The Winter's Tale..  

The movie is mildly amusing but there's no reason for it to exist.  Furthermore, every eight to ten minutes it fades to black -- I assume that there were once commercial interruptions at those intervals.  As shown without commercial interruption, the movie clocks in at about one-hour and 37 minutes.