There’s a reason director Aneil Karia’s HAMLET lingers long after the final frame—and it’s not simply because of its striking visuals or bold contemporary setting. It’s because, for perhaps the first time in a modern adaptation, the story is experienced not as observation, but as immersion.
We are not watching HAMLET.
We are inside him.
Speaking with me in this exclusive interview about his approach, Karia is quick to acknowledge that this perspective wasn’t born out of academic reverence for Shakespeare, but rather the opposite.
“I probably left school thinking Shakespeare was something you had to be more intellectual…to connect with,” he admits. “So I had to find a way into it that I could understand.”
That “way in” became the film’s defining principle: psychological immediacy.
A Hamlet You Feel, Not Just Understand
Working from a stripped-down script by Michael Lesslie, Karia made a decisive creative choice—to anchor the entire film in Hamlet’s point of view.
“All of my filmmaking has been about trying to root the viewer in the character’s experience,” he explains. “There’s no reason not to do that with Hamlet. Ultimately, it should be emotional.”
That philosophy transforms the narrative. What has traditionally been a cerebral exercise becomes something visceral—unsettling, immediate, and deeply subjective.
And it is here that Karia’s collaboration with cinematographer Stuart Bentley proves essential.
When the Camera Becomes the Mind
Rather than treating the camera as an observer, Karia and Bentley use it as an extension of Hamlet’s psyche.
“At the beginning, there’s a kind of rigid formality,” Karia notes, reflecting the character’s attempt to maintain control within an oppressive family structure. “And as Hamlet unravels, the camera does too.”
That evolution—from composed framing to increasingly turbulent, handheld immediacy—creates a visual language that mirrors emotional descent. Certainty fractures. Stability dissolves. And the audience is carried along for the fall.
It’s not simply stylistic—it’s experiential.
Color, Space, and Emotional Architecture
If movement reflects Hamlet’s inner state, so too does the film’s use of color and environment.
Karia describes a deliberate contrast between sterile, oppressive interiors—crematoriums, family spaces—and more heightened, almost disorienting environments, like the wedding sequence at the Meridian Grand.
“That space felt much more fitting,” he says, noting its clinical, corporate atmosphere. “It had this slightly oppressive, contemporary feel.”
From there, the film allows itself bursts of heightened expression—most notably in the play-within-a-play—before returning to a more controlled palette. These shifts are not arbitrary; they function as emotional markers, oscillating between repression and release.
And underpinning it all is night.
“We wanted it to feel like everything is constantly moving forward,” Karia explains. “And night seemed to speak to Hamlet’s demons…his state of mind.”
Editing the Line Between Clarity and Chaos
Maintaining that singular point of view while honoring the broader world of the story proved to be one of the film’s greatest challenges.
“It wasn’t a straightforward edit,” Karia admits. “We had to go down a lot of dead ends.”
The difficulty lay in balance—remaining anchored in Hamlet’s perspective without losing the narrative weight of the surrounding characters.
“There comes a point where you’re stripping so much out…you ask, when does Hamlet stop being Hamlet?”
It’s a delicate line—one that the film ultimately walks with precision, preserving both momentum and depth.
A Score That Lives Between Worlds
Composer Maxwell Sterling’s score plays a similarly dual role, bridging the timeless and the contemporary.
“There was a temptation to go ultra-modern,” Karia says. “But Maxwell brought something more complex.”
Blending classical instrumentation with a modern sensibility, the score reflects the film’s broader ethos—honoring Shakespeare’s legacy while reinterpreting it for a new audience.
Interestingly, restraint became as important as composition.
“The temptation was to have music everywhere,” Karia notes. “But we had to remember the power of stripping it away.”
Nowhere is that more evident than in the “To be or not to be” sequence, where the late-stage decision to remove music allows raw sound and performance to take precedence.
Finding a Way In
At its core, Karia’s HAMLET is less about reinvention for its own sake and more about accessibility—about finding a way into a story that has, for many, felt distant or impenetrable.
“I had to approach it in a way that I could connect with,” he says. “Something emotional. Something immediate.”
And in doing so, he’s created something that invites audiences—whether lifelong Shakespeare devotees or hesitant newcomers—to do the same.
Not by analyzing Hamlet.
But by experiencing him.
by debbie elias, exclusive interview 04/01/2026
HAMLET will release only in theatres on April 10, 2026.
For a deeper dive into the performances, visual design, and Karia’s bold adaptation choices, see my full review of HAMLET here.
