For the film festival's surprise movie, this really was a surprise - not the usual blockbuster, but a classy experiment from one of the more wayward US independent directors. Until now, Michael Almereyda has been a marginal figure. Shakespeare is the last thing you'd expect from him, especially in a version as polished and elegant as this.
This is what screen Shakespeare should be - an imaginative reworking of a familiar story, and a brisk new dialogue brokered between text and visuals. It is set in modern Manhattan and Elsinore has become the Denmark Corporation. Heir to the throne, or rather the chair, is Ethan Hawke's bohemian slacker prince, who never delivers a soliloquy without his camcorder to hand. Polonius, played by Bill Murray in his driest turn yet, is an old hand who doesn't have the killer boardroom instinct to survive.
Almereyda's reading is a crisp commentary on our over-familiarity with the Hamlet myth - hence a narcissistic prince playing back his dry run for "To be or not to be" on his DVD machine before he delivers the speech for real.
Hawke's cool urbanite prince is the film's weak link. More impressive is Julia Stiles as a smart college-girl Ophelia. This suave, concise Hamlet is an impressive achievement. And the corporate Elsinore is so boldly conceived that it feels churlish to point out that Finnish maverick Aki Kaurismaki got here first with Hamlet Goes Business, set in the boardroom of a rubber-duck factory.
***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable
** Mediocre * Terrible
