Maybe your upstairs neighbours got a new dog, and it’s huge. Maybe your fruit fly trap isn’t working, or maybe the bus driver skipped your stop. Maybe your headphones died 10 minutes into your morning run, maybe you didn't get that job you really, really wanted.
Whatever's left you prickly, exposed, and wounded by the world outside you, Hamlet's existential film school student (Ethan Hawke) and Ophelia's dark room photographer (Julia Stiles) offer kinship as they navigate Shakespearean traps and tragedies; Hamlet (2000) delivers an outlet, a fantasy.
The film takes Hamlet's dark troubles—a murderous uncle, the perceived betrayal of his mother, the calls for revenge from his father's ghost, and his own crushing grief—and casts them against a steely 1990s-era New York City: our Hamlet wallows in a glass-walled skyscraper apartment, our ghost fades out of sight in a vending machine hallway.
We watch as Hamlet and Ophelia press against the hard walls of their circumstance: the dense unease gets thicker, trapping neon-streaked scenes from New York's dark streets as much as those backed by bleached corporate offices. We see Ophelia encased in her innocence and youth; she acts against her glass cage (an outstretched arm, a poolside daydream), looking for cracks to break through. We see Hamlet's madness take the form of disillusionment; he paces the fluorescent halls of an empty Blockbuster.
Through voiceovers delivered in Hawke’s earnest gravel and art films edited at Hamlet’s cluttered desk, Hamlet spotlights an interiority that makes the exterior mechanics of the high-drama plot fade behind this persistent buzz of angst. The larger political drama (here, corporate politics) of Denmark’s power struggle is almost entirely obscured by the visceral impact of human lust, depression, loyalty, and greed that play out on-screen. It all feels sticky, icky, and you're stuck watching ‘til the end.
Recommended: Watching this movie with warm tea and soft covers. Waiting for all the information before acting.
Maybe your upstairs neighbours got a new dog, and it’s huge. Maybe your fruit fly trap isn’t working, or maybe the bus driver skipped your stop. Maybe your headphones died 10 minutes into your morning run, maybe you didn't get that job you really, really wanted.
Whatever's left you prickly, exposed, and wounded by the world outside you, Hamlet's existential film school student (Ethan Hawke) and Ophelia's dark room photographer (Julia Stiles) offer kinship as they navigate Shakespearean traps and tragedies; Hamlet (2000) delivers an outlet, a fantasy.
The film takes Hamlet's dark troubles—a murderous uncle, the perceived betrayal of his mother, the calls for revenge from his father's ghost, and his own crushing grief—and casts them against a steely 1990s-era New York City: our Hamlet wallows in a glass-walled skyscraper apartment, our ghost fades out of sight in a vending machine hallway.
We watch as Hamlet and Ophelia press against the hard walls of their circumstance: the dense unease gets thicker, trapping neon-streaked scenes from New York's dark streets as much as those backed by bleached corporate offices. We see Ophelia encased in her innocence and youth; she acts against her glass cage (an outstretched arm, a poolside daydream), looking for cracks to break through. We see Hamlet's madness take the form of disillusionment; he paces the fluorescent halls of an empty Blockbuster.
Through voiceovers delivered in Hawke’s earnest gravel and art films edited at Hamlet’s cluttered desk, Hamlet spotlights an interiority that makes the exterior mechanics of the high-drama plot fade behind this persistent buzz of angst. The larger political drama (here, corporate politics) of Denmark’s power struggle is almost entirely obscured by the visceral impact of human lust, depression, loyalty, and greed that play out on-screen. It all feels sticky, icky, and you're stuck watching ‘til the end.
Recommended: Watching this movie with warm tea and soft covers. Waiting for all the information before acting.