"Movies about grief can be a tough sell. Unless there's a comedic tinge ( Truly, Madly, Deeply; Good Grief) or a genre element ( Hereditary, Arrival), they can emit the off-putting odor of melodramatic wallowing, especially if the script and acting aren't pitched just right. There are exceptions, of course: In the Bedroom, Manchester by the Sea, and of course Pig among them. (Just for clarity: Ordinary People is not one of them.)"
"Helen, a Cambridge University professor in line for a prestigious overseas fellowship, initially keeps it together, as expected in her typically British stiff-upper-lip family. ("Father wouldn't want any of this moping.") But her reserve starts to wall her off from human contact, and she decides to return to her long-since abandoned hobby of falconry as a route to companionship. Obtaining Mabel (played by an array of stunning avians), she treats the creature as something of an emotional support animal,"
H Is for Hawk follows Helen, a Cambridge professor grieving her father's death, who returns to falconry and acquires a goshawk named Mabel. Helen treats Mabel as emotional support and trains the bird obsessively while carrying it to work. Flashbacks show the close bond with her father and moments of dark comic relief appear, such as a novelty-coffin funeral scene. Claire Foy delivers a sterling central performance complemented by striking trained birds. The film balances restraint and moments of levity but struggles to reach the emotional heights of exceptional grief dramas due to pacing and occasional tonal unevenness.
Read at Oregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
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