CriticSociety- film reviews

Review

Hamlet

Director

Michael Almereyda

Year

2000

Rating

Reviewed by

a.k.a. Jacinda

Review date

Tuesday, January 30, 2001

Another Shakespeare adaptation? That’s fine with me. This time it’s a modern version of one of the most difficult plays written by William Shakespeare. Not only is it hard to understand the motivation of Hamlet but his monologues start tiring the viewer after a while. Kenneth Branagh’s movie failed in transferring Hamlet to the Victorian age and the sheer length of the unabridget adaptation was too much to take.

Almereyda takes Hamlet to the modern world of New York in the year 1999 where the Denmark corporation is one of the most powerful companies worldwide. Shortly after Hamlet’s father (Sam Shepard) dies his brother Claudius (Kyle MacLachlan) marries Hamlet’s mother Gertrude (Diane Venora) and becomes king/head of Denmark. Hamlet doubts his father died in a natural way and as he starts looking for revenge a catastrophe is happening.

The modern Hamlet is portrayed by Ethan Hawke who gives a stunning and strong performance. Most of the scenes are carried by Hawke – better than ever. Moreover there is a superb Bill Murray as Polonius and a brilliant Julia Stiles as Ophelia. It is a shame that Ophelia stays pale and her motivation doesn’t get clear because most of her scenes are abridged. I especially liked the idea of using cameras when the characters speak to themselves. The whole point of Hamlet being a filmmaker was a great idea and gave the movie a unique visual style. Furthermore the setting was chosen very well. The skyscrapers full of metal and glass convey the dark and cold atmosphere.

I liked the movie in many ways but it didn’t work perfectly for me. The main flaw of the movie is the fact that some scenes don’t transfer to the newly created circumstances that well. For example there is the scene in which Hamlet doesn’t kill Claudius because he just confessed his sins and he doesn’t want him to be cleared of his deads when he dies. The setting is a limousine instead of a church so that if you don’t know the original play it’s hard to understand why Hamlet doesn’t kill his uncle in the first place.

Some scenes work fine, others don’t. Hamlet is based on original ideas providing a whole new view at the play. Too bad it has to be compared with Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet which was more powerful and engaging. But this shouldn’t be the fault of Almereyda because Hamlet is simply a very difficult play to adapt. If you’re into Shakespeare you should give Hamlet a look. It certainly has some highlights and a superb cast giving great performances. And after all Hawke stated:

"Hamlet is like Kurt Cobain. He has problems with his parents, an identity crisis and a difficult girlfriend. All boys have these problems, don’t they?"


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