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HAMLET Send This Review to a Friend
Shakespeare's great play "Hamlet" has survived through the centuries, so it will surely survive this updated movie version adapted and directed by Michael Almereyda. It isn't the re-setting of the tale in contemporary New York that's a problem. That aspect is rather intriguing and amusing, such as making Claudius the CEO of company known as the Denmark Corporation, having the ghost of Hamlet's murdered father appear on a security monitor, and filling the drama with a flashy, visually arresting array of contemporary props and sets.
It's the acting--there's the rub. Ethan Hawke as Hamlet is only effective when he is erupting in anger. There is no nuance to his performance, and not the slightest suggestion of the depth that great actors have read into the Bard's complex character. Here there is mostly posturing. Kyle McLachlan and Diane Venora fare better as Claudius and Gertrude, as do Sam Shepard as the ghost and Liev Schreiber, who recently played "Hamlet" in a disastrous New York production at the Public Theater, as Laertes. But Bill Murray is totally ridiculous as Polonius. Julia Stiles struggles with the role of Ophelia, and the adaptation crudely stresses sexuality in Hamlet's relationship with her. Steve Zahn and Dechen Thurman turn Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into caricatures. And so it goes.
The film is more amusing than boring, but "Hamlet" is not meant as an oddity. If it doesn't work as tragedy, the play has been shafted. Without a great or even a near-great Hamlet, the play is undone even in the best of circumstances. What we have here is a conceit, somewhat enjoyable as an effort to connect with the present, but bereft of the elements that have made "Hamlet" one of the world's greatest plays. Incidentally, Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki did a black and white update called "Hamlet Goes Business" in 1987, also with a company setting, and that had a more serious aura. A Miramax Films release.
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