Michael Suarez
Our wills and fates do so contrary run that our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, there ends none of our own.
— Act 3, Scene 2
Michael Almereyda’s 2000 adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the last great modern Shakespeare film. Though 25 years old, there’s a lot of the movie that doesn’t feel dated. Sure, the eponymous Hamlet walks through Blockbuster during the infamous “To be, or not to be” speech, and there are details that clearly come from the turn of the century, but for the most part, Almereyda’s trust in the source material is the thing that makes the film as timeless as the play on which it was based.
Hamlet is about a young man who comes home from university because his mother, Gertrude, is getting married to his late father’s brother, Claudius. Haunted by his father’s ghost, Hamlet sets about enacting his revenge against his uncle when he is told that Claudius murdered Hamlet’s father. Along the way, Hamlet slowly becomes unhinged, which affects just about every main character in the play.
The ’90s saw two relatively popular screen adaptations of Hamlet. The first, from director Franco Zeffirelli in 1990, starred Mel Gibson as the lead, and the second came from Kenneth Branagh in 1996, who both directed and starred as the lead. Both are very different interpretations that still take place around the time period the play is set in, which is always a good choice. Why mess with a good thing?
However, thanks in large part to Baz Luhrmann’s successful modern take on Shakespeare with 1996’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, it wasn’t out of place to see updated adaptations of the plays, like 10 Things I Hate About You or O. However, like Luhrmann, Almereyda keeps the original dialogue, which is such a fascinating thing to watch. On screen, things look modern, inasmuch as they did when the films were made and released. They’re juxtaposed with language that can be difficult to follow for most, but thanks to that, it’s actually easier to follow.
I don’t need to know what a certain word means when I can see a character holding the modern equivalent. This is great because it’s proof of how timeless a Shakespeare play can be. Buhrmann changed a sword to a gun, so Almereyda did as well. And while Buhrmann kept his signature style to translate Romeo + Juliet to a modern audience, Almereyda’s style is one of indie prestige. The film is begging for a proper HD transfer, at minimum, because although it’s very much a city film, it’s a great-looking city film. New York City is shot like a kingdom, and it works.
It’s not too far off to suggest the modern equivalent of a king could be a CEO, especially if that corporation is the biggest in a city like New York. As such, I can assume that the city would work as Claudius’ kingdom. Wherever Hamlet goes, he can be found, whether by his so-called college friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or Claudius’ security. Surveillance equipment like bugs, cameras, and closed-circuit TV is are modern touches that make this all work.
Age is also something I appreciate from Almereyda. Gibson was in his mid-30s when he played Hamlet, as was Branagh. By contrast, Ethan Hawke was in his late 20s. Sure, we’re talking about 6 years or so, but those things make a difference. Hamlet is supposed to be a college student, although that’s modern thinking on my part. However, some readings of the play put Hamlet’s age at 30 or even 16, depending on how you read Shakespeare’s text. Yes, even experts can’t come to a solid conclusion. However, since Almereyda is making a modern version, it makes sense to me that Hamlet be portrayed as younger than he has been in the past.
This works for me because I can accept his relationship with Ophelia more than I can when others play the part. Ophelia is generally played by younger female actors, and this film is no exception. Although I can see Hawke and Julia Stiles in love a lot easier than I could see Branagh and Kate Winslet.
Speaking of the cast, everyone is pretty fantastic. Hawke and Stiles are good, as are Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Venora as Claudius and Gertrude. Liev Schreiber as Laertes, Ophelia’s brother, is excellent, and don’t get me started on Almereyda’s masterful casting of Bill Murray as Polonius. He’s so good. Even actors who pop in for a scene or two are great. I suppose if an actor can do Shakespeare well, that actor is a good actor, and well, everyone in the film is clearly good.
This is all to say that Almereyda’s choices do right by the play, because Hamlet is one of the best things I’ve ever read, and clearly, it’s considered a classic in English literature. Sure, some dialogue is removed and changed, but I don’t always need a 4-hour film adaptation, like Branagh’s film. What remains is the essence of the play, which is about loss, revenge, and, probably most importantly, mental health.
In the 2008 comedy Hamlet 2 from director Andrew Fleming (co-writing the script with Pam Brady), the main character, Dana Marschz, attempts to put on a play that is a literal sequel to Hamlet. In it, Jesus and Hamlet use a time machine to rewrite the ending of the original play. When confronted about changing the ending, Dana has this to say:
I just wondered why in Hamlet 1 everybody has to die. It’s such a downer! I mean, if Hamlet had had just a little bit of therapy, he could have turned everything around. Everybody deserves a second chance!”
Although the idea of a sequel to Hamlet is played for laughs, this answer illuminated a reading of the play I hadn’t thought of before I saw the movie over 15 years ago. Hamlet is clearly suffering a mental breakdown, and while he does have Horatio there, everyone else around him doesn’t seem to care about him. At least, I believe that’s how he sees it. His mother married his father’s brother shortly after his father’s death, Ophelia, and both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern appear to be spying on him for the King, his uncle, and now his father clearly wants him out of the way, and he’s being haunted by his dead father’s ghost.
It’s a lot, and although I wouldn’t have done the things Hamlet does, I can understand why he does all of these things. I still hurt for characters like Ophelia, though, which is why I’m never surprised to see a new work regarding her character. People like me know that she’s dealt a lousy hand. Still, since the majority of the play is about Hamlet becoming “mad,” over the past decade and a half, I watch this film with that particular perspective in mind.
When I see Hawke’s Hamlet freak out over finding the wire under Stiles’ Ophelia’s clothes, I can understand his hurt in her betrayal, but I also see a man coming apart. It’s one thing to yell and throw her out. It’s quite another to leave messages on her answering machine berating her. Still, Hamlet formulates a plan to kill Claudius. After determining that Claudius did indeed kill his father, Hamlet tries to kill him. Except he holds back when Claudius speaks to himself about what he did and how guilty he feels.
Hamlet tries again and ends up killing Polonius, which causes Ophelia to have a breakdown of her own and kill herself. This, in turn, causes Laertes to want to kill Hamlet, and in a final showdown, well, as I said earlier, just about everyone dies. Is it all Hamlet’s fault? Is it Claudius? There’s plenty of blame to go around. The key here is how Hamlet’s mental health, when not addressed, cost him everything.
The “To be, or not to be” speech is famous because it’s so well written. However, given this new context, it’s important to note how the speech isn’t so much about Hamlet convincing himself to act but convincing himself not to commit suicide. As such, he makes good on his plan to not only find out whether Claudius really did kill his father but also to get revenge. This is motivation enough to keep living, and although living is a good thing, perhaps these motivators aren’t. I’m not suggesting Hamlet should have gone the other way, but there is something to which Dana is right about.
Instead of speaking to himself, Hamlet would’ve spoken with Horatio. He could’ve taken these questions to Horatio and really dug in deeper than having a loyal friend be there as Hamlet makes decision after decision that brings bout so much harm. Horatio seems like a good friend, but would a good friend go along with all of this? I don’t know. I don’t believe so, but if Hamlet didn’t have Horatio, what else could’ve happened? Would things have been worse? Possibly.
We have plans in this life. Sometimes, those plans clash with the plans of others. What we need to do is stop and take stock of ourselves and the world around us. What are our decisions doing to ourselves and others? Can we do better? Putting in the work is hard, and it takes time, but it can be worth it. The fact that this play is hundreds of years old makes me sad. It means that mental health is an issue that’s been around for a long time, and not dealing with it has always had major effects.
Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet works because he understood that in order to prove Hamlet as timeless, he had to modernize it without changing anything major. He had to show that things like technology, guns, and setting it in New York City don’t make a difference. It’s window dressing for the things Shakespeare wants to both entertain us with and think about. Robert Burns wrote in his poem “To a Mouse”:
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
We do not know where we will end up, and such a truth can shake us to our very core. Hamlet suddenly lost his father, and with that, his mind and subsequent losses. How do we deal with the idea that we don’t know what’s going to happen, regardless of how well we plan? I don’t know, and I’m not certain Shakespeare knows either. For in the end, Hamlet sees what lies beyond the noise of his existence and sees it’s only one thing:
The rest is silence.
Indeed, it is. When we put in the work, we can find calm in the maelstrom of living. We need not lose those we love. It is unfortunate that it is too late for Hamlet to learn this, and it is even more unfortunate that so many never find this solace. Hamlet is a play about loss, revenge, and mental health. Almereyda’s film retains these core notions and manages to modernize the play so well that we have yet to see a follow-up film adaptation in 25 years. Make no mistake, this is a great movie that deserves more love from both movie watchers and Shakespeare aficionados.
