{"id":384919,"date":"2026-01-22T21:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T21:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/384919\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T21:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T21:38:15","slug":"h-is-for-hawk-review-claire-foy-has-never-been-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/384919\/","title":{"rendered":"H Is for Hawk review \u2014 Claire Foy has never been better"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve got to love cinema. It has such emotional room for approaching the same subjects from completely opposite and yet somehow complementary positions. Take this considered adaptation of Helen Macdonald\u2019s bestselling grief memoir<\/a>, arriving weeks after another considered adaptation of the bestselling grief novel Hamnet. Both movies track the agonies of a formidable female protagonist \u2014 in this case Macdonald, who is played by a never better Claire Foy from The Crown. Both movies place their character\u2019s grief over the loss of a male relative in the context of nature. In both the women bond with birds of prey, and can find peace only through a greater understanding of their place within a wider tapestry. And yet, despite this, these two films could not be further apart on the dramatic spectrum, nor could their tonal ambitions be more disparate. <\/p>\n

If Hamnet was the big weepy sob, then H Is for Hawk, in the best way, is the stiff upper lip. It announces the death of Macdonald\u2019s beloved dad, Alisdair (a warm Brendan Gleeson), in an early scene via hospital phone call in 2007. Macdonald, at the time a research fellow at Cambridge in the department of history and philosophy of science, receives the news with shock but quickly composes herself and opts for a posh restaurant meal with her Aussie buddy Christina (Denise Gough), explaining: \u201cThe table\u2019s booked and we\u2019re late!\u201d There are, in other words, no Max Richter strings swelling on the soundtrack, no wailing and no communal epiphanies. <\/p>\n

\u2022 How Claire Foy dealt with her difficult co-star in H is for Hawk<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead Macdonald impulsively adopts an intimidating goshawk (there\u2019s a family history of casual falconry). The bird, she learns from the expert Stuart (Sam Spruell), is \u201cthe wildest and maddest of raptors\u201d and is thus a perfect metaphor for the fierce and unruly process of grief. So the film is a parallel double-drama that charts Macdonald\u2019s growing yet always tentative bond with the goshawk, named Mabel, while simultaneously exploring the young academic\u2019s gradual emotional disintegration and her alienation from a superficial academic milieu. Cambridge University life, as depicted by the director Philippa Lowthorpe (Misbehaviour) and the screenwriter Emma Donoghue (Room), receives a special hammering, with pusillanimous beta-male students and pompous visiting professors the anathema of Macdonald\u2019s search for true connection with the natural world. <\/p>\n

Elsewhere Donoghue\u2019s judicious adaptation axes a lot of unnecessary weight from the book, including all the ponderous guff about the writer TH White. Instead she adds some smart new supporting scenes, such as Macdonald\u2019s piquant university rant about the toxicity of Thomas Carlyle\u2019s \u201cgreat man\u201d theory of history, even as she falls to pieces over the one genuinely great man in her life. <\/p>\n

Foy is exceptional throughout in a project that frequently requires her to share the frame with a beady-eyed, sharp-clawed killer and, crucially, to convey a combination of awestruck admiration and stultifying terror. One of the most compelling and oddly moving scenes features Macdonald, raptor on wrist, slowly and carefully pacing around her Cambridge flat, and introducing a still skittish Mabel to her kettle and her toaster while saying evenly, \u201cThis is my kitchen, and these are some of my treasures.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews<\/a><\/p>\n

One of Macdonald\u2019s greatest epiphanies is delivered drily and without much fanfare, when she simply acknowledges that her father \u201cwas the only person in the world who truly understood me. And now that he\u2019s gone I miss him terribly.\u201d Again, no strings. No Richter. No wailing. <\/p>\n

Ultimately this protagonist looks to nature and to Mabel in an admirable attempt to reconcile the ubiquity of death, the brevity of life and the urgent, though possibly pointless, search for meaning.
\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606
12A, 115min
In cinemas from Jan 23<\/p>\n

Two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman<\/p>\n

Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit thetimes.com\/timesplus<\/a> to find out more.<\/p>\n

Which films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve got to love cinema. It has such emotional room for approaching the same subjects from completely opposite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-384919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}