It’s an unspoken rule for anyone who cares even a little bit about Shakespeare: don’t try to adapt Hamlet. The Bard’s most famous tragedy might also be the most impossible to commit to the screen. Yes, it’s a searing, immersive study in grief; a timeless treatise on the sins of the father. It’s also the role of a lifetime for any actor worth his salt, a rare opportunity to access the emotions that men are too often told to tamp down in favor of playing it cool. But Shakespeare’s cautionary tale about ego and legacy is all too easily turned into a monument to male fragility. Modern adaptations of the play are alienating at best, and grossly indulgent in the whims of their leads at worst.
That’s probably the least-gracious reading of a text as iconic, as enduring, as Hamlet’s — but titans like Kenneth Branagh and Ethan Hawke have spent decades proving how dangerously true it can be. It’s likely why we haven’t gotten a mainstream adaptation of Hamlet in over 20 years: you’ve seen one “to be or not to be,” haven’t you seen them all?
