TIFF25 REVIEW: Hamlet [20XX]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 114 minutes
Studio: Focus Features
Director(s): Aneil Karia
Writer(s): Michael Lesslie / William Shakespeare (play)

We distrust you.

I think the best compliment I can give to Aneil Karia’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is that I truly couldn’t remember if the events happening on-screen were true to the text or completely new. Whether you love or hate the direction he, screenwriter Michael Lesslie (who also wrote the Justin Kurzel Macbeth), and producer/catalyst Riz Ahmed go, you cannot deny that they swung for the fences to deliver its words and themes in a wholly fresh and visceral way. This is a portrait of madness from grief and despair from corruption. It’s a literal descent into Hell in which no one will ever escape.

That full-blown insanity is what struck me most because I don’t recall any version going so hard into chaos. From the moment Hamlet (Ahmed) sees the ghost of his dead father (Avijit Dutt), something is irrevocably broken inside him. Not just because he allows himself to believe he’s seen a spirit, but because he doesn’t seem to care if it was real. As soon as the thought arises that his uncle Claudius (Art Malik) is responsible for his brother’s murder, everything else just makes sense. Especially the fact that his mother (Sheeba Chaddha’s Gertrude) has chosen to marry him so quickly after becoming a widow (regardless of it being custom).

Laertes (Joe Alwyn) and Ophelia (Morfydd Clark) constantly being present to finesse their friend at the behest of their conniving father (Timothy Spall’s Polonius) does nothing to help matters either since Hamlet sees it as a ruse first and wellness check second. So, the more they push or seem to interfere with his ambitions for revenge, the meaner he becomes towards them. It’s as though his entire world (born out of his father’s company Elsinore) is conspiring against him. As if his return to bury his hero is some elaborate joke. Hamlet’s motive therefore becomes burning it all down to get the last laugh.

If you’re wondering why I’ve only mentioned six characters (besides the king), it’s because that’s all Karia and Lesslie include. The former spoke during my screening’s Q&A about wanting to streamline things to ratchet up the intensity. To merge characters for a leaner trajectory that would ultimately allow for him to maintain Hamlet’s perspective without popping in other people to speculate about what might have happened next. Ahmed spoke about the decision also allowing them to beef up Ophelia and Laertes specifically (by absorbing Horatio). They truly had a vision and worked tirelessly to give it life.

It becomes a very emotional journey as a result. Always in the moment. Always placing impulse above contemplation. And Ahmed has never been better with the camera often in his face to ensure the audience sees his manic disposition and hears his unhinged cackles when cracking off-color jokes to crickets while introducing the play at Claudius and Gertrude’s wedding. He credits the musicality of the iambic pentameter for letting him tap into his other artistic half. Ahmed admits his rap career pulls out more of himself through its performances and this particular project blurred that line.

The violence is brutal. The pacing is breakneck. The “To be, or not to be” soliloquy is delivered out loud to himself while speeding down a highway on the wrong side of the road. That’s the energy you can expect. Guttural screams and a desire to injury after every new body falls. Vicious assaults to perform an execution and to prevent it. And to make the play resonate even more today (beyond the depiction of a solitary man being told everything he can’t have so that he must wonder if he’s going insane or if the world has), the victims of Elsinore’s greed for which Hamlet is complicit by name.

Things can sometimes move too fast, but they must to ensure we stay exhilarated from start to finish. Because the moment you pause to try wrapping your head around this prose in a modern-day setting, the artifice has a way of popping you out of the flow. I’ll take the conscious removal of that threat every day regardless of any wonkiness that may result because I’m not the biggest Shakespeare guy. So, facilitating that level of engagement really helps my focus. Add a great cast expressively delivering their lines for context clues and a conscious decision to lean into the humor of Hamlet’s spiral and I was rapt.