For those of you who don’t know I love Ophelia. She is my favorite character in like maybe anything ever and all I want to do is consume media about her and see different interpretations of her (even the shitty fetishy ones).
By chance early this year I was handed a free ticket on the street (I shit you not) to see a test audience screening of the movie Ophelia, a new update of the Hamlet legend directed by Claire McCarthy and written by Semi Chellas and adapted from the novel of the same name by Lisa Klein. It focuses on Ophelia’s take of Hamlet and attempts to empower her and grant her the agency Shakespeare lost her. All well and good. However, I had read the plot for the actual novel ahead of time and I was skeptical to say the least of the movie. The plot sounded a bit like bad fanfiction I would read for the Tenth Doctor and Rose on my kindle fire at 1 am when I was 12. However, it was too good a coincidence to pass up and I really wanted to see the terrible shit show it might be (or perhaps the great movie I was hopeful). So I went.
The cast for Ophelia is incredible. I really want to start this off with saying that. Daisy Ridley, George Mackay, Naomi Watts, Clive Owen, Tom Felton (a horribly underused Tom Felton), and newcomer Devon Terrell who plays Horatio, were all phenomenal. They’re good actors. Everything I’m about to say next does not implicate these talented, talented people who I’m sure poured their heart and soul into this.
I would like to preface that this is less of a review and more of a transcription of the long document I wrote explaining the movie in depth in the notes section of my phone immediately after watching it.
Spoilers Ahead:
So I walked into the theater and thought “this movie is going to start with a shot of Daisy Rideley lying in the water staring face up looking like the famous John Millais painting and then it’s going to pan across the water and we’ll hear a voice over saying “we’ve all seen this picture” or something” and this is literally how the movie started. I predicted the movie’s opening shot perfectly and almost word for word.
We then meet little kid Ophelia (who of course dresses like a little tomboy because we can only empower women by making them cast aside all womanhood and instead of giving them depth we just make them “boyish” or whatever) as she hides under a table and defends a young twinky little Hamlet (watch the movie he looks like a twink) from literal incest accusations her dad is making against him and his mom for no reason which made no sense because Ophelia and her family are Poor And Disliked in this version and he could not risk that shit.
Then Ophelia is taken under the wing of the Queen and they have to “make her look pretty” or whatever and they wash her hair and put a dress on her and I’m like “oh boy she’s gonna turn around and it’s going to be full grown Daisy Ridley” and lo and behold I predicted another shot.
So Ophelia grows up as does Laertes, her STEM kid brother (played by Tom Felton who was like barely there you have Tom freaking Felton use him) who tells her all you need to know about the heart is in the anatomy and that love isn’t real and blah blah (and they cut out the whole “Laertes is getting mad French pussy” bit like in the play). The other ladies in waiting don’t like her though because she’s poor and wears flowers in her hair because she can’t afford jewelry and sings a lot (hmmmmm forshadowing???) and also because we can’t possibly show women being nice to each other.
But of course eventually a woman IS nice to Ophelia. Queen Gertrude takes Ophelia on as a private lady in waiting and has her read her porn. That’s right, Gertrude lies on a bed while Ophelia (a 16? 17? year old girl) reads her Middle Ages era “his quivering member” type porn. And it’s weirdly sexual and I guess was meant to be women empowerment but more felt like uncomfortable predatory shit or possible lesbian subtext depending on how old Ophelia is because I really had no clue, Daisy Ridley looks old but I don’t think Ophelia was meant to be old.
So Hamlet and his Best Platonic Heterosexual Buddy Horatio get back from school at Wittenberg and they meet up with full grown Ophelia. She’s naked swimming in the river and Horatio is like “okay I’m a respectful and kind young man and I will not creep on this girl who is clearly not consenting to this” but Hamlet is like “SHOW ME YOUR TITS” and guess which one Ophelia falls in love with? Heterosexual romance at its very finest.
Ophelia and Hamlet meet again at this ball where everyone has flowers in their hair except Ophelia even though her defining personality trait so far is she has flowers? But now she has jewels? I didn’t understand. Anyway, after Hamlet has been flirted with by Ophelia’s enemy, Bitchy Lady In Waiting OC, he and Ophelia step outside the party and we can HEAR THE MUSIC THUMPING LIKE THEY JUST STEPPED OUTSIDE THE CLUB AND I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT??? But they kiss and they’re in love I guess, but he has to go back to Wittenberg and she almost gets raped by Ambiguously Brown Evil Guard OC (every crap woman empowerment film needs one) and Hamlet saves her or something and then he leaves.
While he’s away, Gertrude is being seduced by Creepy Claudius (played by even creepier Clive Owen) because she and King Hamlet are having some marital issues. If one thing can be said for this movie it perfectly follows my good friend Roz’s theory that Gertrude was forced to marry King Hamlet young and didn’t love him and had to bear his child but he was always at war and his younger brother swooped in and was the tender and compassionate man she could talk to while he was away. Gertrude gets Ophelia to go into the woods to meet Creepy Witch Lady (also played by Naomi Watts) who gives Gertrude special potions (wonder what they could be for hmmmm) and we find out she’s in the woods because she had a man’s baby out of wedlock and then miscarried and was accused of witchcraft and almost burned at the stake but then she faked her death with witch potion (that she somehow had I forget how) and now she’s a witch in the woods. We later find out she’s Gertrude’s Secret Witch Twin and the guy was Claudius and he accused her of witchcraft.
Anyway, Gertrude and Claudius kill the king I guess and get married and suddenly Gertrude is really mean to Ophelia. I don’t really know why she just is. Maybe it’s because of the constant implied incest between her and Hamlet or the fact that she’s just sad and angry and taking weird witch drugs. Hamlet and Horatio return from Wittenberg and Hamlet is forced to kneel to the king in one of the best shots in the movie (Gertrude and Claudius are getting married and Hamlet kneels before the altar painfully and stained glass light is shining in and just like George Mackay’s face is so intense he was going for his Oscar the poor boy).
Ophelia and Hamlet meet on the barracks and see Hamlet’s ghost??? I guess??? And then they have some weird conversation about how Hamlet hates all women by not Ophelia for some dumb reason??? Then she has a Fun Conversation with Horatio who literally digs up dead bodies illegally where Ophelia asks Horatio not to look at her vagina when she’s dead. Yup I really watched that.
So Hamlet and Ophelia get secret married in the woods (I forget why) and pretend to be Shepherds together because This Is Romeo And Juliet and it’s sweet I guess? But then Hamlet finds out that Claudius killed the king and stole the throne from him and Freaks Out and is like UHHHHHHH actually I don’t care about you (because he was previously like “I don’t care about the throne only you”) I want the throne. And he starts to pretend to go crazy. But then Claudius finds out they got married (or something) and drags Ophelia by her hair to Hamlet to see if they really got married. But they’re some Tricky Bitches and Hamlet (who’s wearing so much guyliner which will get progressively more intense the crazier he gets) pretends to hate Ophelia and they yell at each other and whisper the truth the whole scene and they basically just devalued the whole “get thee to a nunnery scene” and also he says “go to a nunnery” like at least quote exact come on. Also him saying that was telling her to run off to the convent his mom was raised in.
So they’ve temporarily got Claudius foiled. But wait it’s time for Hamlet’s Experimental Theater Company putting on the story of his dad’s murder. It was odd and melodramatic and Hamlet was being that bitch.
Then Hamlet accidentally kills Polonius before he can marry Ophelia off to Evil Guard OC and Hamlet gets sent on a boat to England. But Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are supposed to push him off the second they leave. So Ophelia finds this out and gets very sad and tries to kill herself but Horatio is like “no bruh the boat hasn’t left” so Ophelia runs off to warn Hamlet. But Horatio doesn’t do anything himself because he’s too busy disecting bodies?? I think??
Anyway Claudius attacks Ophelia and threatens to kill her for some reason I can’t understand and then she pretends to be crazy I guess? For like half a second and gives people flowers in fake Shakespeare and accuses everyone in the court which like fine. Sure. And then they’re chasing her and she has the Fake Death Potion and runs into a river and drinks it. But the thing is Gertrude and a bunch of guards follow her into the river and she goes underwater for like .2 seconds and they just assume she’s dead. Even though Gertrude clearly knows about the fake death potion she’s just like “OH NO OPHELIA IS DEAD!”
So Ophelia wakes up in the coffin and Horatio digs her up because she told him to while she was crazy which was uhhhhh stupid because he could’ve easily not done it. So then he’s like YOUR BROTHER IS BACK AND HE AND HAMLET ARE GONNA DUEL! And Ophelia is like OH NO! But instead of gee I don’t know talking to her brother??? She goes off to the witch cabin and tells Gertrude’s sister that Claudius was the one who accused her of witchcraft and then Gertrude is there or something and tells Ophelia that the only way to save Hamlet is to disguise herself as a boy and tell him she’s alive and not to fight???
So they cut Ophelia’s hair and she literally pretends to be Osric and at this point the whole movie theater has burst into laughter because uhhhhhhhh what the fuck?? And she tries to get Hamlet to leave and they kiss but he won’t leave and she never once just tells her brother not try to kill Hamlet.
So the duel happens but this is Feminist Hamlet so Hamlet and Laertes die first and then Gertrude STABS CLAUDIUS THROUGH HIS THRONE AND IT WAS SO METAL AND SUCH A COOL SHOT LIKE OH MY GOD! Then Gertrude’s witch sister comes and leads the Norwegians to take the Danish court instead of Fortinbras because he doesn’t exist?? Maybe?? Why are they even letting her lead them?? And then Gertrude drinks poison and dies in her sisters arms while they kill the WHOLE DANISH COURT SUPER BRUTALLY LIKE NOT JUST THE MEN THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN TOO. And Horatio gets arrested??? I don’t know in the book this is based on apparently he marries Ophelia but that didn’t happen probably because the actor was black.
In a quick epilogue Ophelia literally runs off to a nunnery and has a baby girl who is the legitimate heir to the throne of Denmark but that’s not addressed at all and I don’t know why because literally who is even ruling Denmark right now anyway? And she’s like “it was all worth it because I had a baby.” And this is a feminist film.
I wish I could’ve liked this movie. I wish I could’ve at the very least laughed it off but the wasted potential just made me angry. It’s not just that it’s a bad movie but it’s a bad concept.
Let me say that a feminist adaptation of Hamlet could be cool. We could focus on Ophelia’s anger and spirit and desire for revenge of her father. We could watch a young, spirited woman be destroyed by the abuse and manipulation of the court and her lover and then her ultimate act of rebellion in her madness and taking of her own life in order to ensure her brother kills the men who have wronged her. We could see what was going on in her life when she’s off screen such as in Ophelias Zimmer by Alice Birch or we could explore her psyche and even visit her in the afterlife like in 12 Ophelias: A Play Of Broken Songs by Caridad Svich (my personal favorite). Who is this girl who was so deprived of a voice and agency she could only find it in screaming old songs and handing flowers to her betrayers? The idea of an Ophelia who is maybe playing at madness in the same way her prince was is fascinating to me. And where is her mother? What is her relationship to her father and her brother? Why has she been allowed to run wild? What was her relationship to Hamlet? What did she really want?
None of this is explored in Ophelia. It’s simply a different story, an extrapolation on Romeo and Juliet type themes but not even in an interesting way. It touches on classism and misogyny but only in a weak way. It creates characters who are straw feminists a former “tomboy” who has no female friends, a drug addicted wife who kills her husband, and a literal witch who lives in the woods and sells poison. The story focuses on these three women but they are allowed no more depth than the stereotypes embedded into their stories. They’re just three archetypes.
But even this could be forgiven if Ophelia wasn’t so desperate to be a love story.
Hamlet abuses Ophelia. Hamlet manipulates Ophelia. Hamlet gaslights Ophelia. Hamlet humiliates Ophelia publicly on multiple occasions. Hamlet promises to marry Ophelia knowing well enough that he can’t and then takes her virginity, ruining her chances of marriage. Hamlet murders Ophelia’s father and doesn’t even spare a thought for her afterwards. And Hamlet most likely rapes Ophelia.
When you consider all of these crimes a feminist retelling focusing on Ophelia has great potential. And throwing all of this away to turn it into some great love story is simply offensive. In an era where abused women are finally getting some semblance of a voice, it feels cheap to reduce Ophelia’s life to a love story. To change her ending so that audiences can sigh about tragic romance. When will we get to hear Ophelia as she must have been: angry and loud and afraid and hurt? Why is she still being silenced and sanitized so we can see Hamlet as the tragic hero English professors and actors so love?
I hope that someday we’ll really hear her on the big screen. We’ll get a new Ophelia where Hamlet is the villain finally and her voice screams through. What she has to say won’t be pretty and her pain won’t be romantic like it is in this film. But it’ll be what we need to hear.
The Salt Squad 