Well, it was nice to see Daisy Ridley in another role, but this film was largely unnecessary and just a waste of talent and time.
Daisy does a good enough job as Ophelia, a misunderstood character in the classic Shakespeare's Hamlet, but the plot is a disaster. Sure, it attempts to follow the play but given that it's from her point of view, some things are distorted such as the tainted love between her and Hamlet (an unusually cold performance from George MacKay) and Clive Owen's Claudius is just a disaster without the opportunity to give the character any necessary pathos. Naomi Watts does what she can with the duel roles of Queen Gertrude and her healer sister, Mechtild but Tom Felton is wasted as Laertes.
So, I don't have too many positive things to say about the film, though the scenery and camera angles are good but the music is disjointed as it is modern music when classical would have been a more appropriate choose. Still, it was far better than I was expecting and managed to eck out a happy ending despite the morose material, but even that is tainted. Hamlet chooses to fight, something he's against, instead of running off with his true love so he is to blame for his own death. Grade: B-
Side Notes:
-Based on a book, which I read, the film lets Ophelia live but here, the child appears to a girl while the book gave Ophelia a son and let her fall in love with Horatio who comes to rescue her.
-The fake death scene of Ophelia is just ridiculous.
-This is the second film where George MacKay dies before his child is born. The other one is the equally disastrous Where Hands Touch, but at least he was better in that film.
-Who was Claudius's first wife and what happened to her?
-Eyeliner has never looked worse on a man than on Hamlet.
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