“Looking for goshawks is like looking for grace: it comes, but not often, and you don’t get to say when or how,” writes Helen Macdonald in “H Is for Hawk,” a book I picked up by accident and which proved to be the greatest tool I had when one of my own parents passed away. When someone around you loses a loved one, it’s all but impossible to know what to say. I recommend reading “H Is for Hawk.”
For Macdonald, that most eloquent of memoirs emerged from the death of her father, photographer Alisdair MacDonald. But what Helen really did to process her grief was to adopt a goshawk. The book is partly about what a wild and uncommon thing that is to do, but it’s mostly about what was going on in Macdonald’s mind through the process (which involves all kinds of engaging digressions into falconry, literature and the life of the writer T.H. White, who wrote “The Goshawk”). Sometimes our brains need something completely different to concentrate on, while our hearts do their mending.
As a movie, “H Is for Hawk” — which stars Claire Foy as a headstrong and occasionally hard-to-take version of Macdonald — might have a similarly comforting effect for some, although it elides so much of what originally resonated with me (namely, the language, for which Macdonald has a remarkable gift). What is gained in exchange is a visual dimension entirely lacking from the book, as director Philippa Lowthorpe supplies footage of Foy enraptured with her raptor, whom she names Mabel — so much footage in fact that the 128-minute film stops being a work of philosophy and reflection, and becomes instead a more conventional portrait of a human with an exceptional pet (a word that ruffles Helen’s feathers, as she considers Mabel to be more of a companion).
Fine. One thing I learned at the Telluride Film Festival, where the film premiered, is that no one — not a single person I queried — had read Macdonald’s book. So instead of bemoaning what’s missing, it’s best to recognize what is there. On that front, “H Is for Hawk” remains a moving account of one person’s eccentric interest in falconry, which she takes up in response to her father’s death. Brendan Gleeson plays “Ali Mac” as a benevolent parent, the only person who ever fully understood her.
In flashbacks so warm, his passing may start to depress you too, Ali displays an artistic curiosity in all things: first the natural world, as he introduces young Helen to birding, but also the strange ways that humans have of inhabiting it (he proposes a project of photographing every bridge between the Thames’ source and the sea). “Room” screenwriter Emma Donoghue makes a recurring theme of Helen’s unique relationship to other living creatures, as in a scene where she scoops up a large spider and gently carries it outdoors.
Moments later, Helen gets the call from her mother (Lindsay Duncan) where the tone of her voice delivers the news of Ali’s death before the words are spoken. You can’t prepare for how the loss of a parent will hit you, and in Helen’s case, it all but derails her academic career — her teaching responsibilities, the fellowship she’s applying for. Instead of wallowing in her misery, the movie accompanies her, like best friend Christina (Denise Gough), who checks in regularly with unconditional support.
Macdonald never admits as much, but there’s a strange phenomenon by which losing a parent gives you wings — or, to torture the metaphor, allows you to fly in ways you wouldn’t have dared when they were alive. Helen had always loved birds, an interest she associates with her dad, but it’s only after her father passes that she feels compelled to adopt one. And not just any bird, but a dangerous predator. If Michael Crichton was right, this winged killer could well have been the next step in the evolutionary chain: a connection to something primeval.
In the opening scene, Lowthorpe shows Helen studying wild goshawks through binoculars — looking for grace, you might say. The animals’ appeal is undeniable, but few would take the leap from observing to inviting a goshawk into one’s home. The movie takes us through all the stages — not of grief, but cross-species connection — from a shady exchange with a breeder (who advises “murder” as the key to managing these lethal creatures) to the long, slow process of gaining the bird’s confidence (presenting fistfuls of raw meat, while avoiding eye contact). Lowthorpe unhurriedly reflects Helen’s sense of wonder, taking the time to admire the bird’s plumage and the deadly weapons that are its talons and beak. Mabel is indeed magnificent, but also an all-consuming responsibility … and, let’s face it, distraction for Helen.
It’s a rare privilege to spend so much time with Helen and her charge, and the footage of Mabel (played by two different birds, filmed by Mark Payne-Gill in the wild) hunting pheasants and so forth mesmerizes. But there’s arguably too much of it, dominating the film’s slightly excessive run time. As we grow impatient, her friends and family express their concern. According to Macdonald, at that moment, Mabel gave her purpose and a chance to process: “I’d closed the door on the world outside. Now I could think of my father.”
The movie gives audiences room to do the same, as ideas Macdonald articulately explored over hundreds of pages are suggested by the nuances of Foy’s performance. The role required her to learn falconry, as there’s no faking Foy’s interaction with the animal, which bates wildly at first (twisting and flapping to escape her grasp), but returns to her glove once it trusts her. Helen obviously sees something of herself in the animal, though Lowthorpe doesn’t impose any one interpretation. Instead, Helen is allowed to be irritable and anti-social, chain-smoking and snappish, without the filmmaker casting judgment.
A mental health angle reveals itself late in the film, which is helpful to acknowledge (especially for those seeking comfort for equivalent losses in their lives). But I can’t help wishing that “H Is for Hawk” had incorporated more of Macdonald’s related discoveries, from Ken Loach’s “Kes” (about a boy and his bird) to revelations about “The Once and Future King” author White, a queer hero whose biography is at least as interesting as hers.