Cinema for Brunch HAMLET (2025) Review

A tragedy indeed – Aneil Karia’s “Hamlet” carries a top-notch lead performance from Riz Ahmed and an established atmosphere…with a crushingly plodding pace.

Synopsis

A man seeks revenge against his uncle for murdering his father in a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Review
It’s quite an insurmountable task for a filmmaker to keep Shakespeare material that is faithful to the source engaging and entertaining enough for the big screen. The dialogue of Shakespeare’s brilliant work is complex, the internal monologues of pain and wrath are many and the acting is justifiably over the top….these factors don’t always translate well to the language of cinema. There have been interesting takes on the Bard’s work in the past – Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 eccentric “Romeo + Juliet”, Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 stunning, textured “Hamlet” and Joel Coen’s 2021 stripped down, black-and-white “The Tragedy of Macbeth”. But the fact that these works are few and far in between proves the point that translating Shakespeare to cinema is simply just not easy to do. And most attempts can therefore fail. The latest director to take a swing at adapting the Bard (and updating the locale to contemporary London) is Aneil Karia with his take on “Hamlet” along with Riz Ahmed in the title role. The plot is the same as it’s ever been but with some slight tweaks: Haunted by his father’s ghost, Prince Hamlet (Riz Ahmed) exiles himself from London’s elite and strolls to the underground while seeking to avenge his father’s murder. As his uncle Claudius (Art Malik) plans to marry his newly widowed mother Gertrude (Sheeba Chaddha), Hamlet’s quest for vengeance now includes a mission to expose the corruption of his family’s empire while sacrificing his own sanity in the process.

While Ahmed may be the best choice to lead this adaptation, this film makes a huge ask of its audience to follow the faithful Shakesperean dialogue of its script (courtesy of screenwriter Michael Lesslie) with moody atmosphere and an even moodier score. While that sounds like an intriguing combination for a theatrical vision of “Hamlet”, the film can be quite boring at times. To appreciate a faithful direction like Karia’s, you have to love the art and complex beautiful dialogue of Shakespeare’s works. It’s not hard to fall in love with Shakespeare’s writing and to want to see what a modern look of that work looks like but for a theatrical experience….it’s not enough. Riz Ahmed delivers a great internal performance, commanding the screen and trying his best to carry the film as much as he can. He bounces well off his talented co-stars including Joe Alwyn as Laertes, Morfydd Clark as Ophelia and the legendary Timothy Spall as Polonius – everyone here knows the material and delivers it as best they can. But it’s not enough to make the adaptation as compelling as it aims to be. A faithful work such as this can require a Cliff Notes-assisted participation from its audience. And, without the eccentric flair of perhaps a Baz Luhrmann adaptation or a stunning production design of a Kenneth Branagh take, the film is not cinematically powerful enough to justify its own existence.

While Aneil Karia proves himself to be great at establishing atmosphere and mood, making this film with the goal of it being more than a failed lackluster Shakespeare adaptation is just not realistic. As the switchup to the modern-day London (both the upper class and the underground) tries to make the material fresh and vibrant, it doesn’t dull the overbearing Shakespeare-ness of it all, specifically the numerous monologues and dull action. But – being that this is a Shakespeare tragedy – Karia does let the blood spill when it needs to. The death scene of Polonius is aptly bloody and intense – adding a powerful scene that blends monologue with action and proves the potential of what this film could have been.

Closing Thoughts
Aneil Karia’s “Hamlet” is a disappointing adaptation of a classic play. The film boasts a talented cast and there are glimpses of what could be a terrific film but the finished product just doesn’t connect with its ambitious goals. I honestly don’t know if this film would be better in another filmmaker’s hands but what I can confidently say is that engagement is key when adapting something as dense as Shakespeare for the big screen. Keeping a balance between dialect and action is imperative for a successful adaptation of the Bard to work.

Trailer