H is for Hawk - Movie Review. - Fremantle Shipping News

Jean Hudson went birding – at the movies. Here’s her review.

I looked forward to this movie with Claire Foy and Brendan Gleeson—both wonderful actors, but Mabel the Goshawk stole the show.

Claire Foy plays Helen MacDonald, a Cambridge academic who copes with grief after the sudden death of her father (Brendan Gleeson). She loses herself in memories of birdwatching with her father and decides to train a wild goshawk.

Based on a true story and bestselling memoir of the same name by Helen McDonald, H for Hawk is a journey of connection between people and nature. Helen brings the wild goshawk to her rooms in Cambridge and teaches it to hunt. Totally obsessed with Mabel, she neglects her own selfcare and falls further and further into depression.

Grieving Helen is all British stiff upper-lip and suppressed tears. As the camera lingers on Helen curled under a desk, I want to see more of Mabel soaring and swooping through the forest.

While watching the movie, I realised my sympathies were with Mabel the hawk, rather than with the Helen the griever. Perhaps this says something about me or something about the movie.

For me, it was all about Mabel, a magnificent, ferocious raptor who was indifferent to human grief. She was wild, hungry and kept indoors, blinkered and tied to a perch. I wanted her to be free.

Worth seeing – but go for the goshawks – Mabel was played by several.

And be warned, it’s long – 120 mins.

I give this movie 5 out of 10.

H for Hawk opens at Luna Cinemas on 28 May.

*By Jean Hudson

Jean Hudson is our Shipping and Sailing Correspondent and also a regular feature writer, reviewer and photographer here on the Shipping News. You may also like to follow up her informative Places I Love stories, as well as other feature stories and Freo Today photographs, right here.

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