It’s often said that no one actor can hit all of Hamlet’s contradictions. He spends the first half fragmenting and, by the interval, he’s dressed in several costumes at once: a student’s trainers, a soldier’s trousers, a David Bowie T-shirt and a tailcoat daubed with the word “KING.” He’s a living, breathing identity crisis, scholarly one moment, silly the next and always, always self-absorbed. His Hamlet stands in for a generation, one that’s stuck in adolescence and shirking all responsibility. Turner pushes against any such simplicity with a stark, self-aware edit of the play - Hamlet starts with “Who’s there” only for Leo Bill’s Horatio to enter - that restores the Norwegian subplot more or less in full, while Cumberbatch himself gradually casts off the shell of Hamlet as depressed, vengeful stepson for something much more significant and politically potent. (In early previews, he opened with “To be or not to be…”) He sits on the floor, staring into the distance, as Nat King Cole croons “Nature Boy” on vinyl, almost daring us to impose its pat moral - just to love yadda yadda - onto Shakespeare’s play.ĭon’t succumb to that, whatever you do. This is a Hamlet for a world on the edge: a warning from history, and a plea for new ideas from a new generation.Ĭumberbatch begins as the Hamlet we know and expect: Hamlet the icon, hidden away in his room, dressed in black and brooding over his father’s death. Its star defers to his director’s vision, probably to his own personal detriment: his Hamlet is many things at once, more a collection of characteristics than a credible character, but he finds his purpose as he goes on - as does the production. Benedict Cumberbatch’s prince might have triggered a media frenzy, but make no mistake, this is director Lyndsey Turner’s production - and it’s a radical reinvention with real political intent, even if it’s too complex to fully cohere.

Benedict cumberbatch hamlet full movie