Riz Ahmed thinks Shakespearean scholars don’t get what makes Hamlet tick. The Danish prince, he
says, isn’t on the verge of suicide in his “To be or not to be” soliloquy — he’s trying to man up.
“It’s not ‘Should I end it all?’” says Ahmed, who speaks the iconic lines in a new “Hamlet” that debuted at the Telluride Film Festival and will screen at the Toronto Film Festival. “It’s about ‘Are we willing to live under injustice? Do you fight or do you give up?’”
Nor does Ahmed accept the usual portrayal of Hamlet as a man plagued by indecision. On-screen,
his Hamlet is a coiled ball of outrage waiting for the right moment to avenge his father. “He’s continuously active,” Ahmed says. “He’s investigating, strategizing, gathering evidence while he psyches himself up to do the unthinkable.”
This adaptation of “Hamlet” breaks with tradition in other ways, moving its setting to contemporary
London and exchanging a royal court for McMansions populated by a group of South Asian moguls, their families and their underlings. It also pares down the text, excising characters (farewell, Horatio!) and scenes so the focus is firmly on its tortured protagonist.
“We did away with anything that didn’t heighten the subjectivity of the experience,” Ahmed says. “We kept all the parts that brought us into Hamlet’s mind and give viewers a sense of what he’s feeling.”
But its blistering look at power and corruption remains intact, and is even more relevant as the world tilts towards kleptocracy.
“There used to be unspoken rules,” says director Aneil Karia. “But now people aren’t even trying
to hide their criminality. The ground is shifting under Hamlet’s feet. And like so many people these days, he’s revolted at what’s happening but feels powerless to change it.”
Ahmed first fell in love with “Hamlet” as a teenager when his English teacher, Mr. Roseblad, suggested he read the play.
“It was a time when I felt like I really didn’t belong,” Ahmed says. “And like so many people over such a long time, I found myself in that play. I saw a character who also felt that he didn’t fit in.”
Even after Ahmed grew up and found success, starring in blockbusters like “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and earning an Oscar nomination for “Sound of Metal,” he kept dreaming about putting his imprint on the moody prince. He labored for nearly a decade on the script, searching for the perfect creative partner. Ultimately, he found it in Karia, who directed Ahmed in the Oscar-winning short film, “The Long Goodbye.” That film was based on Ahmed’s hip-hop album of the same name, and he felt that Karia had a unique ability to translate poetry into action.
“We want to democratize Shakespeare and not make it something stuffy and distant,” Ahmed says. “And Aneil understood how to make it feel lived in and urgent and contemporary, and have that action thriller feel to it.”
Yes, you read that right. Shakespeare’s sprawling, four-hour opus has been slimmed down into something half that length and far more kinetic. That includes the “To be or not to be” speech, which is delivered by Hamlet as he drives a car at breakneck speed, swerving through traffic.
“The question was always, ‘how can this speech feel alive and visceral?’” says Karia. “And the answer was to have him behind the wheel of a speeding car heading towards a lorry.”