Aneil Karia’s ‘Hamlet’ Is a Daring Modernization of the Bard’s Famous Play

Hamlet is a play you can always grasp in broad strokes, and yet it becomes more difficult and intricate the closer you get to it. Even the question of “Is Hamlet truly mad?” has been the subject of fierce debate for centuries, and then, when you introduce film, you create new difficulties. Unless you’re taking the Kenneth Branagh route and pointedly including everything from the text, any adaptation will have to make choices about what should be left on the cutting room floor. By adapting Hamlet, you’re not only trying to move the work to the screen but also making choices about what you want that adaptation to say. Aneil Karia’s new version is one of the boldest versions yet, retaining the dialogue but transplanting the action to modern-day London and among a wealthy Pakistani family who own the Elsinore Corporation. The new Hamlet forefronts its main character like few other versions, and makes for a captivating performance from Riz Ahmed, but at times struggles to make the surrounding story cohere into anything bigger than its choices.

Hamlet (Ahmed) arrives home in London after the death of his father (Avijit Dutt), with his uncle Claudius (Art Malik) now marrying Hamlet’s mother Gertrude (Sheeba Chaddha). A despondent Hamlet, after a night of getting high, has a vision of his father’s ghost, who says that he was murdered by Claudius, and Hamlet must take revenge. As Hamlet spirals further into psychosis, his self-destruction harms those closest to him, including his girlfriend Ophelia (Morfydd Clark) and pal Laertes (Joe Alwyn). Meanwhile, as the Elsinore Corporation looks to expand, they’re confronted by the rise of the Fortinbras movement, which seeks to deliver housing to those pushed out by Elsinore’s construction.

I’ve spent the past week or so watching various Hamlet adaptations, including Laurence Olivier’s (1948), Franco Zeffirelli’s (1990), and Michael Amereyda’s (2000). Karia’s is the first I’ve seen of stretching the material to the point where it might break. You see these changes early on as Hamlet chats with Clark, voicing Horatio’s line,s and then later Alwyn has some Horatio lines. There is no Horatio here, so what we have are deeper relationships with Polonius’ children, which have more impact when they break. Furthermore, they leave Hamlet truly isolated because there’s no Horatio to back him up. It’s arguably the film’s biggest change, and yet one that speaks to the filmmakers’ courage to fully put Hamlet at the film’s center.

There are no scenes here where other characters discuss Hamlet’s mental state or what’s to be done with him. Even the vision of the ghost may just be that—a hallucination—since, unlike in the text, there are no tower guards or Horatio to see the specter independently. Everything we get is through Hamlet’s eyes, and Ahmed is more than up to the task of making the character his own. While some actors attempt to dominate Hamlet and use his madness to chew the scenery, Ahmed beautifully conveys the character’s desperation and sadness. Even the fury he shouts in the “To be or not to be,” soliloquy is punctuated by depression and self-destruction. 

And yet despite the ferocity in Ahmed’s performance and the way the film centers Hamlet to the exclusion of the supporting characters, it’s tough to find a cohesive idea that feels birthed by the dramatic changes. The idea of Fortinbras as a movement rather than a person feels interesting, but the text won’t cooperate in fleshing that out since not only does this adaptation tether us to Hamlet’s POV, but the text itself leaves Fortinbras at the margins, so you have a fleeting idea that’s enticing, but ultimately window dressing. Setting the action within a wealthy Pakistani household is also interesting (and provides a stunning take on the play-within-a-play, “The Murder of Gonzago”), but it seems lost saying anything about race and power in the 21^st century.

Purists will likely recoil at the changes, but the underlying respect for Shakespeare is never in doubt. Nothing is discarded carelessly, but rather to see if the famous play can be reshaped into something audiences can both recognize while remaining surprised. While this new version probably won’t be anyone’s go-to adaptation, it also can’t be easily overlooked and is worth watching if only for Ahmed and Karia bringing such an exhilarating approach to the classic play.

Hamlet is now playing in theaters in limited release.