Cymbeline 2014

Peter Debruge, Variety: The film dazzles with its colors and textures, practically worshipping those jet-black leather jackets, while letting Ed Harris' eyes express what no monologue possibly could. Read more

Keith Uhlich, AV Club: Almereyda tackles one of the Bard's lesser-regarded later works, the plot-heavy tragicomedy Cymbeline, and again unearths untold depths. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: The film has moments of real wit and stylish brutality, but its nods to modernity (motorcycles, iPads, Google) just feel like self-conscious stunts. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: Primarily, what this moody contemporary update does is expose the play as a second-rate Romeo and Juliet that just wasn't made for these times. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: 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. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: What we get-a bitty and begrimed romance-has a lyrical sway of its own, and, even if some of the cast seem lost in the lines, Hawke returns to save the day, and the movie. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: "Cymbeline" has been branded a tragedy, a tragicomedy and a romance, and Mr. Almereyda embraces all three categories. The movie is by turns grim, grimly amusing and romantic, sometimes at once. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: If too many filmmakers try to amp up the excitement in Shakespeare with movie magic, Almereyda goes to the opposite extreme in Cymbeline. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: If this willfully peculiar and daring "Cymbeline" isn't to all tastes, it brings back the blood, the thrills and the sense of moral discovery to a long-neglected work. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: It unfolds like a tragedy, gradually shedding all its armor until it winds up, naked and a little crazy, as something of a comedy. But all this madness has a purpose, as Almereyda shows us. Read more