Hamlet

“To be, or not to be: that is the question.” Those words have been around for over 400 years, and somehow they’ve never lost their meaning. For actors, Shakespeare’s work is full of moments like that—lines that can define a performance. And as someone in the audience, I’ve always enjoyed seeing how different filmmakers interpret his plays on screen.

So it’s always a good day when we get a new take—like Aneil Karia’s version of perhaps his most famous work, Hamlet.

Something is definitely rotten in London. We meet Hamlet (Riz Ahmed) standing with his family over the body of his father in a morgue. As if things weren’t already complicated enough, his mother Gertrude (Sheeba Chaddha) is set to marry Claudius (Art Malik)—Hamlet’s uncle.

Yeah… things are not great.

Lost in grief, Hamlet drifts through all of this in a kind of daze. But everything changes when he has a vision of his father, who tells him his death wasn’t an accident—it was murder. And the man responsible? Claudius.

From there, Hamlet swears revenge.

At his mother’s wedding reception, he stages a play that mirrors his father’s murder, hoping to catch Claudius in a moment of guilt. Once he’s convinced, Hamlet confronts his mother—but in the chaos, he kills Polonius (Timothy Spall). That sets off a chain reaction, with Claudius ordering Hamlet’s execution. Hamlet escapes, but by that point, everything is spiraling toward tragedy, as revenge and ambition consume everyone in its path.

The script, adapted by Michael Lesslie, takes a leaner, more streamlined approach to Shakespeare’s text. Some characters are removed entirely—including Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and even Horatio—which leaves Hamlet feeling more isolated, without his usual anchor to reason.

That choice might frustrate Shakespeare purists, but for someone like me, it actually works. It makes the story feel more immediate and emotionally focused. Part of what makes Hamlet so enduring is how adaptable it is, and this version leans into that by using its modern setting and updated language to keep the story feeling alive.

Karia’s Hamlet ultimately works as a modern take on a classic, and it’s powered by a ferocious performance from Ahmed. His take on Hamlet is intense and physical, driven by a kind of uncontained fury. His grief isn’t just something he feels—it’s something he uses. His expressions alone do a lot of the heavy lifting.

That said, I do wish the film trusted that performance a bit more.

The handheld camera work often feels overly shaky, like it’s trying to manufacture intensity instead of letting Ahmed’s performance do the job. Add in the grainy digital look, and the film sometimes becomes a little distracting visually—almost at odds with the emotional weight of the story.

But even with those issues, the film still works.

Those stylistic choices never fully take away from what’s at the core here: a strong, committed vision and a performance that’s absolutely worth watching. I always appreciate new interpretations of Shakespeare, and while this one may not be the most visually appealing, it definitely has the soul—and Ahmed alone makes it worth the trip.