“Hamlet”

There are a lot of Hamlets out there, but this one actually feels like it has something to say.

Director Aneil Karia’s take drops Shakespeare’s most famously moody prince into a sleek, uneasy version of modern London, rooted in an elite South Asian family whose power runs as deep as its dysfunction. The language is still pure Shakespeare, which means no shortcuts and no updated dialogue gimmicks, but everything around it has shifted to give a jolting electric charge to the literary classic. It’s not just a new setting, but a new lens.

Riz Ahmed has clearly been waiting his whole career to play Hamlet, and his lead performance is restless, sharp, and quietly devastating. He approaches the character as a man burdened with an internal unraveling, a Hamlet who feels trapped not just by grief, but by systems of family, legacy, and expectation, all closing in at once. The famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy isn’t just existential spiraling here, but comes across as a question about whether it’s even possible to push back against something so fundamentally broken.

Karia keeps things intimate but kinetic, his camera rarely letting anyone breathe. The family estate (standing in for Elsinore) feels less like a palace and more like a pressure cooker, full of side eyes, silences, and unspoken rules. You can practically feel the weight of tradition pressing down in every room.

The supporting cast is strong across the board. Morfydd Clark’s Ophelia is given more agency than usual, Art Malik’s Claudius is controlled and chilling in a way that feels very real, and Sheeba Chaddha’s Gertrude is layered with guilt and survival instincts. Nobody’s playing this as a simple villain or victim, which gives the story a hefty dose of satisfying emotional messiness.

What really works is how naturally the film connects Hamlet’s core themes to modern anxieties like systemic inequality, inherited power, and the illusion of fairness. The crumbling Elsinore Construction Group empire becomes a smart metaphor for all of it, exposing the rot hidden behind the shining polish. Hamlet’s descent feels less like madness for drama’s sake and more like the psychological toll of being gaslit by everyone around him, all while carrying unbearable grief.

The film isn’t perfect. The pacing can drag in spots, and not every stylistic swing works. But even when it stumbles, it’s never boring. There’s real ambition here, and more important, real perspective.

By: Louisa Moore