Orphelia

A piece of Shakespearean fanfic, telling the story of “Hamlet” from the point of view of Orphelia, this features some reasonably odd choices – not using much of the pre-existing relationships with her father and brother (both get somewhat short shift), bringing in a couple of plot points from other Shakespearian plays, letting Orphelia be observer to a couple of key moments of plot, and a distinctly different ending. There’s a distinct sense, too, that, if this is a feminist retelling, it’s an odd one as most of the other women around her are mean-girls-cliches – it’s more an “exceptional girl” story. It’s not all bad – there’s some great costuming, and there’s some strong performances in isolation (in particular from Daisey Ridley and Naomi Watts) – but this is a weird case of doing Shakespeare without the language and with a lot of other odd additions on the sidelines. Some of it looks quite beautiful (the shadow-play-within-a-play, a couple of shots inspired by the classic Pre-Raphaelite painting of Orphelia), and it does successfully add depth to a character who’s previous role was to be bewildered, demented and then dead. But this mostly falls into the basket of “interesting failures”.