Political

When you think of the world of English playwright William Shakespeare, chances are you’re not picturing his Early Modern English text interspersed with Hindi. But maybe you should be. In Hamlet, the 2025 reimagining of Shakespare’s play about a Danish prince who, seeking to avenge his father’s death, slowly descends into madness, filmmaker Aneil Karia transports the infamous story to the streets of London and the city’s vibrant South Asian community. In this re-telling, starring The Night Of’s Riz Ahmed in the titular role, Hamlet’s family aren’t actual royalty, but rather real estate royalty. His father is the head of Elsinore, a lucrative real estate empire changing the landscape of London; his clothes aren’t made of luxuriously spun fabrics or lush velvet, but instead consist of a plain white kurta; the court surrounding Hamlet’s family (in this case business associates and a mix of aunties and uncles) don’t feast on hearty meats and wine, but rather samosas and traditional Indian sweets. And everyone speaks Hindi. It’s safe to say, this isn’t your English teacher’s version of Hamlet.

The project, which premiered at the 50th annual Toronto International Film Festival, was almost 14 years in the making, championed by Ahmed who had a longtime dream of taking on the role of the infamous antihero. While it was a long process to see the movie through to its premiere, the wait was arguably worth it, considering it’s a story that — although written over 400 years ago —  is timelier than ever. “Hamlet is about grief, and Hamlet’s grieving his father, but he’s also grieving an illusion of how he thought the world was,” Ahmed tells Refinery29. “He thought it was a much more fair and just place than it’s turning out to be.”

If that sounds familiar, reflecting, say, the entries of your own journal or conversations you’re having within your own circle of friends and group chats — that’s exactly the point. Around the globe, social and political injustices, the reappealing of human rights,  ongoing genocide, and climate disasters have remained a constant and incessant onslaught. “I think a lot of people are feeling that way right now, right?,” Ahmed says of Hamlet’s realization. “A lot of injustice is presenting itself to us in a way that’s shocking, and we’re all feeling a bit powerless in the face of it, and we are feeling a little bit gaslit about it as well, and then we’re feeling complicit in it.”

While the particulars may be different, In essence, Ahmed adds, this idea of feeling powerless and trying to do something to change that  is Hamlet’s journey. “Shakespeare wrote that storyline 500 years ago, and here we are today, still going through that journey.”

The decision for Ahmed and Karia to situate the story in a South Asian community is one that came easily. Given Ahmed’s own background, it made the most sense. “It’s as simple as I connected to this play and I wanted to play this role,” Ahmed says. “Riz is South Asian so that means his family has got to be South Asian,” Karia adds. “And suddenly there you go, we have a South Asian Hamlet.” 

While the decision to situate this particular version of Hamlet within the South Asian diaspora of London was one made out of necessity — the fact that Ahmed himself is South Asian and drawing from his own experiences is natural for such a closely held project, you can’t help but feel like telling the story within this particular community in this particular time period is the only way a filmmaker could have brought the story into the 21st century, at least in an authentic and believable way. 

“It became so much more rich than we could ever imagine,” Ahmed says of grounding the story in this community. Karia adds: “We were constantly being surprised by how these somewhat archaic and kind of whimsical or fantastical details in Shakespeare, like the ghost world, family, honor, remarrying within the family and things like this, which can feel fantastical in some adaptations, started to feel relevant to contemporary South Asian communities.” 

“It felt like there was some conversation between modern South Asian existence and this ancient text, which was really interesting.” 

Integral to Shakespeare’s original play is the idea of legacy and lineage. It’s the reason why, upon his return to Denmark, Hamlet is initially so quick to fall into line, accepting his Uncle Claudius as the new King and his own step-father (if only in public). He’s guided by an allegiance to his mother and the belief that this is what’s best for the country and the lineage. And it’s what, as Hamlet pursues the truth about his father’s death, motivates him to do so by any means necessary, following the notion that he’s avenging, but also preserving, his father’s legacy through justice.

In Ahmed’s 2025 adaptation, the stakes — and reasoning — remains the same, but is emboldened by the shift to a South Asian community, in which duty to one’s family remains a strong tenet that carries with it generational expectations and weight. Not to mention the emphasis on respect and deference to one’s elders. We see this from the moment the movie opens when Hamlet, taking part in traditional funeral rites for his father, openly looks to his Uncle Claudius (played by Art Malik) for guidance on what to do.

In the world of Ahmed’s Hamlet, as within the diasporic community both on-screen and in real life, living up to familial expectations is of the utmost importance. And viewers watch Ahmed navigate that push and pull between duty and desire on-screen as he navigates first his grief, then his torment, and finally his rage. 

This rage, ignited when Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his father, who reveals he was murdered by Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius, is what changes the course of the play and the trajectory of Hamlet’s life. While the original play presents Hamlet as slowly going mad, with his visions of his father framed as ghostly hallucinations, the contemporary take leaves more room for interpretation. Instead, and minor spoilers ahead, it leans into the idea of spirituality, a large part of many South Asian communities and identity. 

While this spirituality is inherent within the culture presented onscreen, seen through rituals and ceremonies, Hamlet is also faced with symbols of Hindu deities, one in a particularly pivotal moment, causing internal reflection. By introducing these deities and the idea of spirituality in this way, Hamlet’s beliefs aren’t represented as delusions, but are instead rooted in something real — or at least believable: Faith.  Meaning that when Hamlet does finally reach his breaking point, in a pivotal and incredibly public moment (one in which Ahmed, who frantically fluctuates between devastatingly desperate and comically unhinged, shines), audiences are presented not necessarily with a man who’s gone mad, but one who is valid in his feelings of grief — making his eventual end all the more devastating. 

While the outcome of Karia and Ahmed’s Hamlet remains the same as the play, the way in which we view the titular character and his actions has changed. And that feels like a very 2025 update. 

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