Ophelia (2019)

A girl child (Mia Quinley, who grows into Daisy Ridley) is taken under the wing of the Queen (Naomi Watts) and made a lady in waiting. She attracts the eye of the Queen's son Hamlet (George MacKay) and soon finds herself privy to intrigue and tragedy. Based on the novel by Lisa Klein and directed by Claire McCarthy. This revisionist take on Shakespeare's HAMLET puts Ophelia center stage and the tale is told from her point of view. But if you're re-imagining one of the greatest works in literature, you'd better come up with something great. What Klein (though to be fair I haven't read her novel) and the film makers come up with is merely interesting and ambitious. It works for the most part before falling apart in the film's last third where they rewrite Shakespeare to the point of ludicrous. It's almost enough to ruin the movie but the first 2/3 are so good that the good will it engenders made me give it a pass. The film's major problem for me was Clive Owen as Claudius who, unlike Shakespeare's play, is turned into a raving villain. I'd chalk it up to an interesting failure and I appreciated what they were trying to do but Shakespeare purists might want to avoid. The underscore by Steven Price (an Oscar winner for his score to GRAVITY) is the best film score I've heard so far this year. With Tom Felton and Dominic Mafham.