Hamlet

Shakespeare’s most enduring tragedy finds bold new life in Aneil Karia’s fierce, full-blooded adaptation, set in present-day London’s vibrant South Asian community. Anchored by a resonant and complex performance from Riz Ahmed in the title role, this is Hamlet as you’ve never seen it.

Karia — whose debut feature Surge and Oscar-winning short The Long Goodbye (the award is shared with Ahmed) have proved him a master of psychological intensity — brings kinetic visual energy and intimate focus to every frame while retaining Shakespeare’s original text (in the first Hamlet film adaptation to do so with a predominantly non-white cast). The setting and cultural placement reveal how powerfully the play speaks to issues around identity, intergenerational tensions, and contemporary struggles over duty, faith, and belonging. Shakespeare’s words remain — but what’s changed is the ground beneath them. And that shift is everything.

The Elsinore of this Hamlet is a family mansion in the English countryside, marked by unease, coded silences, and patriarchal dominance. The supporting cast — including Morfydd Clark as Ophelia, Art Malik as Claudius, and Sheeba Chaddha as a deeply conflicted Gertrude — bring nuance and vibrancy to their striking reinterpretations. But it’s Ahmed’s Hamlet who captivates: cerebral, wounded, and relentlessly modern. His long-standing dream to take on this role, in partnership with Karia, results in a performance that feels both deeply classical and bracingly new.

Karia’s adaptation doesn’t just modernize Shakespeare — it reveals how modern the play already is. In doing so, he reclaims Hamlet as a story of expectation and a parable about the private cost of public grief.

JASON RYLE