Riz Ahmed to star in new film adaptation of Hamlet, Joe Alwyn and Morfydd Clark co-starring

Re-teaming with the director of the Oscar-winning short film The Long Goodbye

Ahmed stars as Hamlet, haunted by his father’s ghost and driven to increasingly unstable heights. Moving from elite London to the city’s underground, from Hindu temples to homeless tent cities, he goes to rash and violent lengths to avenge his father’s murder, ultimately questioning his own role in the family’s corruption and who he has become.

Karia, whose feature debut “Surge” played in competition at Sundance, will direct the screenplay from Michael Lesslie (“Macbeth&rdquo. James Wilson (“Under the Skin&rdquo will produce along with Lesslie’s Storyteller Productions (“The Rescue&rdquo and Ahmed and Allie Moore on behalf of their Left Handed Films (“Mogul Mowgli&rdquo

“This is a Hamlet about race, mental health and inequality, which asks if setting things right means setting fire to the old order. Our Hamlet is an outsider in a wealthy British Indian family, who starts to question his relatives’ morality and his own sanity after encountering his father’s ghost. Hamlet’s bloody quest for revenge against his father’s killer will be told with a boldness and urgency that grabs hold of audiences and won’t let go,” said Ahmed and Karia.

I caught Relay on Netflix yesterday. I’d highly recommend it for Riz fans. It was a good New York City thriller. I was delighted to see Matthew Maher, Eisa Davis and Victor Garber in a cameo. Lily James co-stars.

I watched this last night.

I imagine a lot of purists will be much offended by how fast and loose the movie plays with Shakespeare's text, but for me it did what every worthwhile adaptation should - it gave me a new perspective and make me think about Hamlet in a different way.

This is a unmistakably singular vision, and while the early scenes are a bit shaky in pacing and tone, it eventually becomes tense and thrilling. The conceit of the adaptation is that it turns the story into a paranoid thriller told entirely from Hamlet's perspective. This means a lot of the plotting has been excised and a lot of supporting characters have been cut and their dialogue given to other characters (not unlike Ian McKellen's Richard III). This sometimes changes Hamlet's relationship to the other characters in an interesting way. For instance, Horatio's dialogue is given to Ophelia (Morfydd Clark) and Laertes (Joe Alwyn), deepening Hamlet's relationship to them. One character who suffers from the cuts is Polonius (Timothy Spall). In a good movie or stage production Polonius can steal scenes, but here almost all of his comedic dialogue has been removed, and as a result he mostly served as the Ax-man to Claudius (Art Malik, excellent in his limited screentime). Timothy Spall does his best, but I really wish the filmmakers had found something more interesting to do with his character.

Of course, shaping the movie around the perspective of Hamlet wouldn't work if the movie had a mediocre Hamlet, and thankfully Riz Ahmed's performance is very good - especially once he gets past the mopey early scenes and is able to tap into the energy that has distinguished so many of his other performances. This is perhaps the first time I've seen a Hamlet who feels like he could genuinely be mad.

I pity the poor high schooler who watches this instead of doing the required reading, because they will be screwed. It might be hard to follow for those unfamiliar with the play, but I found it fascinating.