Hamlet

Yea, verily… come again? Riz Ahmed headlines this new version of The Bard's most famous play, loosely translated to the wealthy Indian community of London. Intense, and largely incomprehensible.

I’m on record as an unapologetic troglodyte, at least when it comes to modern screen adaptations of Shakespeare.

The Bard is dead, and best only read. Translation: I think Shakespeare’s texts are so archaic, so archly distanced from modern speech that his plays are best experienced as something you read for pleasure or scholarship, akin to poetry.

Actually having people stand up and spew this stuff? Tush! Let that pass.

So here is a new version of “Hamlet,” probably Shakespeare’s most famous and revered work, headlined by Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”) as the doomed, titular prince of Denmark. It’s well-done, intensely performed by Ahmed and a cast that includes Timothy Spall, Morfydd Clark, Joe Alwyn and Art Malik.

And largely incomprehensible, unless you’re reading along with notes.

Set in modern-day London, the twist is that the action is translated to the upper-crust Indian immigrant community. Hamlet is part of the royalty-adjacent family behind Elsinore Property, a major real estate developer of high rises and such. His father (Avijit Dutt) was CEO, murdered and replaced by his uncle, Claudius (Malik), who marries his mother, Gertrude (Sheeba Chaddha), to seal his position.

It’s somewhat loosely adapted, though the bulk of the language and plot are still there. I’m sure you know the story: Hamlet learns from his father’s ghost that he was murdered by his brother, orders the son to exact revenge, and after a series of what today we would call mental breakdowns he does just that, losing his own life and that of his beloved, Ophelia (Clark), in the process.

Certain allowances are made for the contemporary setting and achieving a manageable running time. Fortinbras is morphed from a last-moment walk-on to the head of a group of homeless agitators opposed to Elsinore’s less-reputable business practices.

Rather than showing up to his father’s funeral with his mother already married to his murderer, the film — directed by Aneil Karia (an Oscar winner for the short “The Long Goodbye”) from a script by Michael Lesslie (whose credits include the Michael Fassbender adaptation of “Macbeth”) — spends a lot of time dwelling on traditional Indian marriage rituals. Indeed, most of the action takes place against the backdrop of Gertrude and Claudius’ extended nuptials.

Ophelia is rather shunted to the background, really only getting two meaty scenes, and the duel with Laertes (Alwyn) turns into a simple drinking toast without so much as a butter knife brandished.

And Horatio? Hamlet’s best friend and heart of heart? Strucketh completely out, thou wert.

Some of the new settings and dynamics work, and some don’t. I appreciated Hamlet giving his “to be or not to be” speech while driving a BMW at breakneck speed against oncoming traffic, underscoring his contemplation of self-destructive acts. Not so much his visit to a strip club.

Ahmed and Spall have some tense scenes together with the latter as Polonius, father to Ophelia and Laertes and also Claudius’ machinating majordomo. Their felicitous exchanges of courtesy, barely hiding their seething enmity, eventually give way to wetter works.

It’s a great-looking picture, with the modern lights and dank streets lending mood to the proceedings. I was never bored.

Ahmed, perhaps striving to make his inner monologues seem more plausible, has the unfortunate tendency to gulp his dialogue, making it even harder to understand Shakespeare’s challenging verbiage. I deeply wished the movie came with embedded subtitles to give dolts like me at least a passing chance at comprehension.

The uncomfortable but obvious truth is that in 2026, the experience of watching a movie adaptation of Shakespeare is like trying to understand something that has been badly translated into another language, and then back again, equally ineptly. You sort of catch enough of the words to get the basic gist of what people are intending, but for the rest rely on the expressions and emotions of the actors to convey that which the wall of high words do vex.

This “Hamlet,” or any, is only for the most truly devoted Shakespeare stans.