Upcoming Film Will Tell Hamlet from Ophelia's Point of View | Playbill

News Upcoming Film Will Tell Hamlet from Ophelia's Point of View The film will topline Daisy Ridley of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Daisy Ridley

Star Wars: The Force Awakens star Daisy Ridley will co-star with Naomi Watts in Ophelia, a film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, according to Deadline.

Claire McCarthy will direct the film, which will have a script by Semi Chellas based on the teen novel of the same title by Lisa Klein. Shakespeare's play is the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who seeks revenge on his Uncle Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father, the king, and married Hamlet's mother. Along the way, Hamlet's intended, Ophelia, goes mad and drowns herself when he rejects her.

The novel tells the same story entirely from Ophelia's point of view, giving her a secret marriage with Hamlet, a pregnancy, and a faked suicide followed by an escape to a new life in France.

Deadline quoted a press statement from the film's producers saying that the movie Ophelia will be a “pulse-pounding insight into a perilous world of murder and betrayal that sees Ophelia, in order to guard a dangerous secret, having to choose between her own life and true love as war, lust, and betrayal threaten to divide Elsinore Castle from within.”

Ridley, currently shooting the next Star Wars sequel, released a statement saying, in part, “Ophelia is brimming with youth-fueled charisma, exploring the nature of true love and beauty, and I’m so excited to bring this fresh mythic spin to Hamlet from a female perspective....This retelling will be experienced through the eyes of Ophelia and has the kind of romance, complexity and suspense that makes this beloved story exciting to younger audiences.”

No production dates, release date or other casting were announced.

 
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