Grand Theft Hamlet

Surprisingly, the most delightful thing about Grand Theft Hamlet – a film not short on amusements – is how ultimately conventional it all is. Trapped at home at the height of COVID-19 with work prospects dried up, working actors and friends Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen resolve to stage a performance of that most tried and true of Shakespearean tragedies, proving the sturdiness of the material can withstand the pandemic’s material limitations. It’s no less than a classic “Let’s put on a show!” showbiz comedy, with all the genre’s typical staples: underdogs placing all their faith in their own ingenuity to see an impossible task through; a motley assortment of colourful ensemble players; setbacks and low points where all seems lost. The only difference is that in this case, all the players are pixelated avatars (some taking the appearance of robots and aliens), all congregated within a digital simulacrum of Los Angeles. Grand Theft Hamlet’s title is, in fact, quite literal.

For almost the film’s full duration, we will never step outside the confines of Grand Theft Auto, as our two leads – joined by Crane’s partner and co-director, the documentary filmmaker Pinny Grylls – resolve to pull together a production of Hamlet that will be unconstrained by limits of stagecraft or budget. Naturally, the most immediate obstacle to their goal is the fact that Grand Theft Auto is more typically known as a forum for indiscriminately shooting, bludgeoning and blowing up one’s fellow digi-citizens than for coming together with them for dorky artistic pursuits. The bewildered, often violent disinterest of Crane and Oosterveen’s fellow Auto-heads can feel like Grand Theft Hamlet’s one joke, but it’s one that never ceases to be funny. In place of a slammed door or rapidly found excuse, the two actors may just as likely be set on fire, or sent tumbling from a skyscraper to their deaths whilst in the middle of their first attempt at a rehearsal.

What elevates all this beyond a droller edition of your average YouTube walkthrough?

Really, it’s how perfectly attuned Crane and Grylls’s movie is to the stupid joy of throwing yourself wholeheartedly into a frivolous endeavour; how oddly invigorating it can be to confer your own personal measure of importance onto nonsense. There’s pleasure enough in seeing a small community form of those for whom Shakespeare geekery and GTA love actually overlap. Still, every trifle passes a breaking point where the participants must make a compelling case for just why it is they stick with it, and it’s here where Grand Theft Hamlet struggles. The main argument is that, absurd though it may be, the prospect of abandoning their project is too disheartening with so little else going on, and that is certainly valid enough. Still, accustomed as we are to catharsis, it’s tempting to wish that the feature’s grand project felt like it amounted to a little more. We ultimately see little of the completed GTA Hamlet, and come this point the energy seems to have largely deserted the affair, with the real world beckoning. When Grylls holds Crane to account for spending more time in GTA world than the actual one (“You missed my birthday!”), one is tempted to side with her. Even with the world shrunken down to your own navel, it’s still best to log off after a certain point.

Ultimately, much like a real, divertingly foolish endeavour, Grand Theft Hamlet cannot help but overstay its welcome. Thankfully, it exits briskly enough for us to fondly remember how fun it could be to start with. It amounts to a delightful argument for the importance of frivolity.

Thomas Messner

Read more reviews from our London Film Festival coverage here.

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Watch the trailer for Grand Theft Hamlet here: