“To be, or not to be,” Hamlet says in his best-known speech — questioning the value of life itself and, more immediately, his own.
But surely, these words have rarely if ever been uttered with such an apparent death wish as when Riz Ahmed, our latest troubled prince, hurtles down a motorway in his BMW, gathering speed with each iamb.
Talk about “shuffling off this mortal coil” — his hands are off the wheel, and he's in the wrong lane! His eventual demise,
in director Aneil Karia’s new “Hamlet,” seems perilously premature — until he wisely stops the car. Because, as we know, there are many deaths to come before Hamlet’s.
Every screen adaptation has had to wrestle with where to place, physically, this most famous of speeches. Laurence Olivier intoned the words near a literal, cresting “sea of troubles.” Kenneth Branagh stared into a mirror. Ethan Hawke notably did it in a Blockbuster aisle — his angst relatable to anyone who has trouble deciding on a movie.
But Ahmed’s version seems particularly apt for the actor’s considerable talents, and is one of the more compelling moments of a pared-down, engaging if spotty rendering of the world’s most famous play. Jittery, tense, fast-talking and always on edge, this is a Hamlet, above all, in a rush.
He also inevitably recalls a Hamlet-like character who recently graced our small screens: Kendall Roy in “Succession.”
The setting, indeed, is so “Succession”-like, it hardly seems an accident. The film, adapted by Michael Lesslie, takes place in modern-day corporate London, centered on a wealthy real estate family in the South Asian community.
The name of the family biz? No, not Roy. It’s Elsinore, of course.
We open with death, naturally. “Elsinore Property CEO Dead at 77,” the headlines blare. Every Hamlet wrestles with grief and anger, but Ahmed, in an absorbing performance that starts with wide-eyed intensity and moves on from there, seems already near a breaking point as he mourns his father.
Indeed, his instability makes us wonder if venal Claudius (an excellent Art Malik) is really a murderer — or if Hamlet is imagining it. But we don't have much time to reflect. Hamlet’s mother Gertrude, a queenlike corporate wife (Sheeba Chaddha, poignant) is about to marry Claudius. Hamlet, of course, finds this appalling — even before his meets his father’s ghost.
That crucial scene takes place on a bleak rooftop (most scenes are at night, or if in daytime, still dark). “I am your father’s spirit,” says the ghost, asking Hamlet to avenge him. It's not quite obvious why this corporate Claudius killed his brother — was it a mere power struggle? Relatively short shrift is given also to a social-justice theme involving a tent city of people evicted from Elsinore property.
Another omission concerns Ophelia's role. The character, played here by Morfydd Clark, has never had it easy, but surely she deserved something akin to the mad scene she has in the play.
Like Clark, all the supporting characters are well cast. The Shakespeare veteran Timothy Spall, especially, is an entertaining Polonius, and he sure gets the bloodiest death. Joe Alwyn, as Laertes, eventually gets a lot more action than he did as Agnes Shakespeare’s brother in “Hamnet.”
It's not long before Hamlet, plotting revenge while pacing the lush lawns of the family estate, realizes: “The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” And indeed, the play is the thing wherein the film catches our attention — a full-on dance performance with glittering costumes and high drama (choreography credit goes to Akram Khan). Another visual highlight is a street procession, with groom Claudius riding a white horse and bearing a ceremonial sword.
It's mid-wedding when Hamlet decides to take the spin in his car and his most famous words come tumbling out. Ahmed has said he interprets the “to be or not to be” speech as not so much about questioning life, but more as an exhortation to fight injustice. The actor-rapper has also noted that a drama teacher helped him see the similarities between rap and Shakespearean verse.
In any case, as in every “Hamlet,” when blood starts flowing, it flows fast. The final confrontation plays out cleverly here in a family dining room — not with the traditional swords, but certainly with poison.
We all know what happens. At least Kendall stayed alive at the end of “Succession” — although in his depleted, defeated state, as he stared at the water, one can imagine what he, too, might have been thinking: “To be, or not to be?”
“Hamlet,” a Vertical Entertainment release, opens April 10 and has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “some bloody violence, suicide, brief drug use and language.” Running time: 114 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
