H Is for Hawk ☆☆☆

Starring: Claire Foy, Denise Gough, Lindsay Duncan and Brendan Gleeson

Directed by: Philippa Lowthorpe

Writer-and-director Phili-ppa Lowthorpe’s (Misbehaviour, Cider with Rosie) feathered biopic, adapted from Helen Macdonald’s beloved memoir of the same name, is an unconventional riff on typical grieving narratives. Amid a cluster of recent heart-renders about bereavement including The Thing with Feathers (a fellow fowl-related film), Hamnet and Good Grief, this one stands out for its somewhat outlandish story. But, despite impeccable performances, there is a tweeness here that sees Lowthorpe’s film fail to fully convey the emotional toll of mourning.

H Is for Hawk begins in Cambridge in 2007, as research fellow Helen (Claire Foy) strides along cobbled streets and ushers her students out of seminar rooms and into the pub. The film wastes no time in announcing that she is no fuddy-duddy professor, partial instead to chain-smoking, off-key renditions of old pop songs and reckless driving. It’s a shake-up for Foy, best-known for playing roles with the utmost poise (most obviously Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown). Here, she’s made to tap into a more rogue and rebellious energy and it’s an exciting new mode for the actor, but she’s let down by an uneven script from Lowthorpe and Emma Donoghue (Room, The Wonder).

“H Is for Hawk begins in Cambridge in 2007, as research fellow Helen (Claire Foy) strides along cobbled streets and ushers her students out of seminar rooms and into the pub. The film wastes no time in announcing that she is no fuddy-duddy professor, partial instead to chain-smoking, off-key renditions of old pop songs and reckless driving. It’s a shake-up for Foy, best-known for playing roles with the utmost poise (most obviously Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown). Here, she’s made to tap into a more rogue and rebellious energy and it’s an exciting new mode for the actor, but she’s let down by an uneven script from Lowthorpe and Emma Donoghue (Room, The Wonder).”

Helen’s newspaper photographer dad (Brendan Gleeson) dies suddenly, blowing apart the academic’s life as she knows it. At first, the History and Philosophy of Science expert tries to drown her sorrows with a drip-feed of ill-advised dates and self-help books, before, a little perplexingly, trying her luck taming a goshawk, the Hannibal Lecter of the bird world.

The film takes flight when Helen brings the intimidating raptor, christened Mabel, back home. It’s rare to see so much palpable on-screen chemistry between a human and an animal actor, akin to Tarka the Otter or Kes, the tension between them could be cut with a talon. The drama then occasionally strays into nature-doc territory thanks to veteran cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen, whose camera impressively tracks Mabel’s hunts, while Helen gets her steps in scurrying after her.

Lowthorpe nails this story’s soaring highs, but the same can’t quite be said of its lows, with Helen’s mental trajectory becoming increasingly difficult to comprehend. She seems to be doing better when she starts to live in self-inflicted squalor in a deeply unhygienic college flat, adorned with bird pellets, spends the latter half with blood smeared across her face and starts to literally shut the door on her Aussie bestie (Denise Gough) without context. Meanwhile, some of her students’ concerns about the ethics of hunting with hawks are shoehorned in towards the end to make a stunted point about getting over death. It’s a well-meaning and graceful adaptation, which could have reached loftier heights had it embraced the complexity and weirdness of its source material.

– Courtesy: Empireonline.com