Untamed emotions take cinematic flight in the wild grief of Helen Macdonald’s memoir
In the end, we can’t take our eyes off the goshawk. Is this a weakness of the film or not?
In the film adaptation of Helen Macdonald’s 2014 prize-winning memoir H is for Hawk, co written by director Philippa Lowthorpe with the novelist Emma Donoghue (Room), the two raptors that play Mabel, the hawk Macdonald acquired after the sudden death of the father she adored, dominate every scene they’re in. And, although some of the philosophy and reflection of the book is inevitably lost, what is gained is a raw and direct experience of the unpredictability and sheer overwhelmingness of Macdonald’s state of mind.
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