The Week’s DVDs begin in Russia:

DVDs and streaming for May 19 by Boo Allen

This week, we begin in Russia:

Leviathan (***)

This Best Foreign Language Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner bravely attempts to convey the futility of living in today’s Russia. Director Andrey Zvyagintsev deftly renders his story about Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov), an average citizen in a small town who dares to confront his local authorities, specifically the corrupt mayor who aids business partners in stripping Kolya of a valuable property. Kolya enters a Kafkaesque world in which his every option becomes thwarted and seemingly everything and everyone works against him. Zvyagintsev ably captures this helplessness, which may look familiar to many Russians.

Rated R, 141 minutes.

Extras: commentary, a comprehensive 30 minute “making of” featurette, 22 minutes of deleted scenes, and a 15 minute Q&A with director Zvyagintsev at the Toronto Film Festival.

The Blue Room (***)

Matheiu Amalric stars in this spare adaptation of a George Simenon crime novel. Amalric also co-writes and makes his directing debut, showing a visual flair while capturing the ordeal of Julien (Almaric), a farm machinery salesman having an affair with an unrepentant femme fatale, Esther (Stéphanie Cléau). The Blue Room is the room in which they have their affair. Amalric details the events partly in flashback, as Julien goes before an investigating magistrate after his wife, Delphine (Léa Drucker), is found poisoned. Julien squirms uncomfortably both when his affair enters an intense phase and, later, when under investigation. As usual in a Simenon novel, a twist ending awaits.

Rated R, 75 minutes.

Cymbeline (**1/2)

Iambic pentameter meets mumblecore in this off-kilter rendition of one of Shakespeare’s less frequently produced plays. Director Michael Almereyda uses but greatly reduces the original dialogue, while re-setting the action from ancient Britain to today. As a result, Cymbeline (Ed Harris) no longer reigns as the King of Britain but as the criminal “king” of a motorcycle gang. The king’s daughter Imogen (Dakota Johnson, miscast even more here than in 50 Shades of Grey) rebels against her father by marrying her love Posthumus (Penn Badgley). The marriage causes the king to banish the newly-wed husband. After that, families split, conflicts erupt, and time passes. Ethan Hawke plays the duplicitous Iachimo, the villain who works to convince Posthumus of his love’s infidelity. Almeryda receives credit for filming this too-rarely seen play even if the results are somewhat lumpy, as he struggles to fit the remaining dialogue into a contemporary setting, a noble effort which never quite fits or jells. Milla Jovovich plays the mean Queen. With Anton Yelchin, John Leguizamo, Kevin Corrigan.

Rated R, 98 minutes.

Extras: commentary, a 13 minute “behind-the-scenes” featurette and six separate interviews with cast and crew.

Jamaica Inn (**1/2)

The Cohen Film Collection remasters in 4K and gives a Blu-ray and DVD debut to Alfred Hitchcock’s last British film before he departed for Hollywood. The 1939 work sports several other notable links, such as the film’s source novelist, Daphne du Maurier. Hitchcock later filmed her novels Rebecca and The Birds. Ealing Studios veteran Sydney Gilliat and frequent Hitchcock collaborator Joan Harrison supplied the screenplay with “additional dialogue” by then-renowned novelist J.B. Priestly. Charles Laughton starred but also co-produced, which probably gave him enough clout to ignore the director and strut, leer, and ham his way through his role as Sir Humphrey, an 1820 magistrate and nobleman who works with a local gang to steer unsuspecting ships into the Cornish rocks. The self-proclaimed “thieves, smugglers, and cutthroats” then loot the ships and murder the crews. Into this situation enters the gang boss’ unwitting, orphaned niece, Mary, played by 19 year-old Maureen O’Hara in her third film, the first under the name O’Hara. Mary finds herself in the midst of the troubles before being rescued by an undercover government agent (noted future hell-raiser Robert Newton). Hitchcock delivers some adequate action sequences abetted by then state of the art special effects, particularly in the two shipwreck sequences.

Not rated, 99 minutes.

Extras: commentary, a 13 minute “making of” featurette, and an accompanying eight page booklet.

Strange Magic (***)

This Disney animated fairy tale takes a musical approach in telling the story of Princess Marianne (voice of Evan Rachel Wood) who wants love but has sworn it off. Luckily, she has the help of a Sugar Plum fairy (Kristen Chenoweth). Along her journey, Marianne encounters the Bog King (Alan Cumming) before eventually meeting various other characters voiced by an impressive cast of Alfred Molina, Elijah Kelley, Sam Palladio, Maya Rudolph, Peter Stormare, Meredith Ann Bulle, and many others.

Rated PG, 100 minutes.

Extras: the “making of” featurette “Creating the Magic,” with cast and crew, and additional outtakes and a few more songs.

Finally, this week’s TV arrivals:

Rogue—season two

The sophomore season of this shady series (dark both textually and thematically) returns with Thandie Newton as Grace Travis, a liaison of sorts between the F.B.I. and the San Francisco Police Dept. Grace has advanced from her role as an undercover police officer and now serves as the “handler” for Sarah (Aleksa Pallidino), an intrepid agent who goes missing while on an assignment with one (Clayne Crawford) of a gang of money-launderers who might also be linked to terrorism. After discussions and arguments with her superior (Andrea Roth), Grace once again goes undercover, setting up the rest of the season’s ten episodes, on three discs, that regularly milk the tension from Grace’s tight squeezes. But to humanize her, Grace’s irresponsible mother Vivian (Clare Higgins) arrives to spend time with her and her granddaughter Evie (Sarah Jeffrey).With Cole Hauser, Martin Donovan.

Not rated, 480 minutes.

Extras: eight featurettes, with a three minute script to screen segment, four minutes or so on the casting, four separate cast interviews of five minutes or less, and two “Set Tours” of around three minutes.

Welcome to Sweden—season one

As this summer series returns, the ten episodes, on two discs, of its successful first season arrive. Creator and co-writer Greg Poehler stars as Bruce Evans, an American accountant who moves to Sweden with Swedish native Emma Wiik (co-writer Josephine Bornebusch). Once there, Bruce becomes the target for the series’ running fish-out-of-water gags, while most Swedes do little more than sit in saunas, crack jokes about Bruce’s height, or lack thereof, and make things bureaucratically difficult for an American trying to emigrate. When needed, Emma’s parents (Lena Olin, Claes Mansson) fill in for obligatory wacky diversions. Greg Poehler’s sister Amy Poehler serves as a co-producer and has obviously enlisted some industry assistance with guest stars: Will Farrell, Aubrey Plaza, Neve Campbell, Gene Simmons, and, of course, Amy Poehler

Not rated, 220 minutes.

Also on DVD and streaming: All the Wilderness, American Sniper, Before I Disappear, The Immortalists.