'Ophelia' Drowns ... In Meaninglessness
Based on a YA novel told from Ophelia's perspective, Claire McCarthy's film is by turns too glib and too reverent with the source material, hopelessly blurring its point of view.
has been sliced and diced dozens of different ways on screen, from the hidebound classicism of Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh's versions to Ethan Hawke giving the "To be or not to be" soliloquy in the "Action" section of a Blockbuster Video. But the play is malleable only so long as Shakespeare's language and plotting are preserved, because tinkering with the greatest work in Western literature is dangerous business, like staring directly into is that it's about two characters tucked so far into the supporting cast that their absurdist side adventures don't count as revisionism. It's just a riff.
