Recent cinematic adaptations of poignant literature have sparked conversations about how grief is portrayed on screen, particularly through the lens of female experience. Helen Macdonald’s memoir H Is for Hawk, Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet, and Max Porter’s novella Grief is the Thing With Feathers have all lately morphed into movies. Each provides audiences profound, unexpected perspectives on grief, the environment, and survival.
H Is for Hawk, directed by a still-to-be-announced filmmaker, stars Claire Foy in the title role, depicting Macdonald as she withdraws into a hawkish commune with Mabel. In this poetic memoir, Macdonald intertwines her journey coming to terms with her father’s death and developing a relationship with the raptor. Brendan Gleeson is delightful and impressive as Shreeve’s father, providing an emotional heart to the story. The film has garnered widespread acclaim, including praise for its poignant and realistic portrayal of grief. Birders slammed it for featuring a Harris’s hawk instead of the goshawk that Macdonald painstakingly trained.
O’Farrell’s “Hamnet” dramatically illuminates this devastating tragedy, a child’s loss, which permeated through William’s life and work. Even more than war, this theme undoubtedly takes the cake as the most gut-wrenching theme in all of literature. Chloé Zhao directed the film, featuring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in star-making performances. Through haunting soundscapes and cerebral, avant-garde lyrics, they illustrate the stark emotional terrain that comes after such an earth-shattering loss. Through storytelling, Zhao advocates for feminine leadership. She demonstrates how these narratives are made possible through the strength of community and interdependence.
“Feminine leadership – and that doesn’t mean just women, it means the feminine consciousness in all people – draws strength from intuition, relationships, community and interdependence.” – Chloé Zhao
Max Porter’s Grief is the Thing With Feathers also has a film adaptation in the works with “The Thing With Feathers.” Benedict Cumberbatch plays the lead in this adaptation. This film navigates the complex emotions surrounding grief while employing birds as a symbolic representation of death. Such films employ avian imagery to existentially familiar yet culturally specific aesthetic and thematic explorations. For instance, Mabel steals the show in H Is for Hawk, but birds play a key role in Hamnet and The Thing With Feathers.
Another major entry in this deep dive into grief comes in the form of “Tuesday,” starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lola Petticrew. In contrast to its predecessors, “Tuesday” approaches the heavy themes of loss and abuse with a touch of humor. This comedic approach provides a compelling balance to the darker depictions presented in other movies.
The discourse around these adaptations invites us to scrutinize what grief looks like on-screen in order to consider who gets to grieve and how. As some of my critics have provocatively queried, “Is it grief-porn or is it grief-art? In doing so, they ask audiences to reflect on whether these narratives exploit or serve to elevate our human experiences of loss.
More recently, a wealth of films have navigated grief. These movies hit so close to home, and in doing so, provide hope and relief through the collective experience of pain. Each adaptation offers a unique perspective on how people cope with their grief. Whether through earthy symbolism or blood ties, they study how humans persistently find community with one another.