Hamlet (1948)

Let’s be honest, the only reason I’m here is because I’m very excited for Chloé Zao’s ‘Hamnet’. It’s about the inspiration behind Hamlet, though I’ve never read or seen anything Hamlet related. Therefore, I felt like I needed to at least familiarize myself with Shakespeare’s play. So here I am. I was pretty impressed by this adaptation, except for the fact that I found it to be very slow and hard to keep up with. The dialect is understandable, though still very of its time, so a chunk of it went in one ear and out the other. But I still understood everything that happened, and I can certainly understand why this story is so popular. This specific version apparently leaves out about an hour and a half of the original play, so it’s not verbatim. But, for beginners, I think it’s a strong adaptation and it’s intriguing. The performances were all pretty great, with Laurence Olivier obviously taking the spotlight the whole time. His Oscar was well deserved. The supporting cast is good, with the exact theatre quality you want for this kind of material. Same for the costumes and production design. Everything looked very authentic and felt realistic for the time period. In fact, the whole film felt just like you were at a theatre, watching this as a live production. The way it was shot was beautiful and precise. On that note, I want to reiterate that I found this very slow and drawn out. It’s well made, but not necessarily to my taste. I’m not big into Shakespearean stories or films, so I couldn’t totally get into this. It was interesting, but long. Overall though, I think it’s worth watching once, and I respect the effort and craft that went into this. I would probably recommend it to most drama fans, but maybe get a fidget toy while you watch it. This film is officially Berry Approved, so go check it out now!