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‘Hamnet’ seemed ‘completely lost.’ How four days saved the year’s most emotional film

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‘Hamnet’ seemed ‘completely lost.’ How four days saved the year’s most emotional film

There were only four days left of shooting on “Hamnet” when Chloé Zhao realized she didn’t have an ending. The filmmaker had led the cast through a week filming the pivotal climactic sequence inside the Globe Theatre, where William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) is staging his opus “Hamlet,” but something was missing. The script had Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), and her brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) witnessing the demise of Hamlet (Noah Jupe), a denouement that should have evoked a sense of release. But even though the moment was meant to tie Shakespeare’s masterpiece to the still-fresh death of Will and Agnes’ 11-year-old son, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), neither Zhao nor Buckley could feel the necessary catharsis.

“Jessie and I avoided each other for the rest of the day because we both knew we had no film,” Zhao says. “We both went home feeling completely lost.”

“We were searching for this ending,” Buckley adds. “It was a daunting idea to try and pull together all the threads of the story we’d woven prior to this moment. I felt incredibly lost and a bit untethered.”

Zhao admits that she rarely preplans the endings of her films because she doesn’t tell stories linearly. She imagines the journey of her characters unfurling in a spiral, with the story extending downward into the darkness before rising back up.

“I’ve had to wait on every single film,” she says. “But this time I was going through the ending of a relationship, so I was terrified of losing love. I was holding on to it with dear life.”

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Actors Jessie Buckley and Joe Alwyn with director Chloé Zhao on the set of “Hamnet.”

(Agata Grzybowska)

The morning after they filmed the scripted ending, Buckley sent Zhao Max Richter’s “This Bitter Earth,” a reimagining of his song “On the Nature of Daylight” with lyrics. The filmmaker played it in the car on her way to the set.

“I could feel the tears and the heart opening, and then I started reaching my hand out towards the window,” Zhao remembers. “I was trying to touch the rain outside of the car. I looked at my hand and I realized that I needed to become one with something bigger than me so I would no longer be afraid of losing my love. Because love doesn’t die, it transforms. When we’re one with everything around us, it’s the illusion of separation that makes us so afraid of impermanence.”

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The true culmination of “Hamnet” occurred to Zhao as she reached for the rain. If Agnes reached her hand toward the dying Hamlet, he could then rest and she could let go of her grief over losing Hamnet. And if the audience joined her, the sensation of release would be even greater.

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“The thing I didn’t expect, the surprise of it, was the absolute communal surrender,” Buckley says. “The way the fourth wall was broken between the play and the audience, the need to reach out and touch the core of the play. Agnes’ compass has always been touch.”

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Although the specifics didn’t come to life until those final days, Zhao always planned the production so the Globe scenes would be done last. Production designer Fiona Crombie re-created the historic open-air theater on the backlot at England’s Elstree Studios using real timber brought in from France. The set version, which took 14 weeks to build, is smaller than the original Globe to create a sense of intimacy.

Plans for the building of the Globe Theatre set from director Chloé Zhao’s HAMNET

Plans for the building of the Globe Theatre set in “Hamnet.”

(Agata Grzybowska)

“This is my version,” Crombie says. “Our footprint is a bit smaller overall, but the essential architecture of the tiers and the roofline and the shape and everything is accurate. By virtue of having real beams that are scarred and aged, it feels more realistic. We wanted the whole thing to feel completely authentic. You want to smell these sets and feel these textures off the screen.”

“I told Fiona I wanted it to feel like the inside of a tree,” Zhao says. “So, spiritually, it’s correct for this story. And the play is accurate. We didn’t change any lines.”

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Historically, there would not have been a backdrop onstage. But for the thematic purposes of “Hamnet,” a backdrop was essential. “There was a whole conversation about not just the aesthetic but the importance of that motif,” Crombie says. “It’s also a wall that separates Will from Agnes.”

“Hamnet’s” Globe was constructed to have a working backstage so Mescal, Jupe and the players could move in and out of the wings. There were real prop tables and makeup stations, as well as a nod to other Shakespeare plays. “We had a horse from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ that was loaned from the real Globe,” Crombie says. “There were loads of details everywhere that honored theater.”

The actors learned significant portions of “Hamlet.” Mescal led the cast of players in rehearsals before filming. “We would rehearse later in the evenings as an ongoing part of the process,” Mescal says. “Once the camera came in, it was Chloé’s baby, but we rehearsed consistently throughout the production. It was so cool. I have a lot of sympathy for directors. What I loved about it wasn’t necessarily the act of directing. It was more so the part of the process in helping me to act. It felt weird to direct them as Paul, but I could direct them as Will.”

4238_D040_01118_R Paul Mescal stars as William Shakespeare in director Chloé Zhao’s HAMNET.

Paul Mescal backstage at the Globe in “Hamnet.”

(Agata Grzybowska / Focus Features)

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Mescal and the players acted out 30 to 40 minutes of “Hamlet” while filming. The actor describes the feeling of being on the Globe stage as “sacred,” both because of the physical space and because of the emotional quality of the scenes.

“It felt very charged,” he says. “Up until that point we knew we had made something very special, but we were also acutely aware that this is where you had to land the plane. And that came with its own pressure. There’s something very special about playing Shakespeare and hearing Shakespeare’s words spoken in that place. The film is talking about the collision of art and humanity, and there are no greater words to communicate that feeling than the words in ‘Hamlet.’”

Zhao enlisted 300 extras to be the theater’s crowd. Each day, Zhao and Kim Gillingham, a dream coach who worked on the film, led the cast and extras in a daily meditation or dream exercise. It was unlike anything many of the actors had previously experienced.

“Everyone dropped into this very deep place of connection to themselves and to what was happening in front of them on the stage,” Alwyn says. “It was this amazing collective feeling of catharsis and connection to something bigger than ourselves.”

Jessie Buckley, left, and Paul Mescal.

(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)

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“The performances from some of the supporting artists are extraordinary,” Mescal adds. “And that was intentional in terms of how Chloé constructed that feeling and by having Kim there.”

After Will notices Agnes in the audience, he goes backstage and finally breaks down, experiencing a long-awaited release of grief. Mescal prepared for the scene by listening to Bon Iver’s “Speyside.” Fittingly, it was the last thing he filmed.

“The play becomes something different because it’s being witnessed by Agnes,” Mescal says. “It comes alive for the audience because of this weird alchemy. Something feels different in the air. That moment felt like such relief, like he could just let go.”

“Hamnet” ends with Agnes reaching for Hamlet. In doing so, she gives herself permission to let her son go. It was a moment that had to be discovered rather than constructed.

“The scene became a holding of collective grief in a communal space where we were allowed to let it out,” Buckley says. “It was like a tsunami. I’ll never forget it.”

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In Mescal’s mind, the film’s ending is really its beginning. He imagines the relationship between Will and Agnes will go on, continuing the spiral.

“I have no idea how a relationship survives the death of a child, but I do think there is a miraculous hope and they can see each other again in that moment,” Mescal says. “They’ve abandoned each other in certain moments, but now she understands where he went. And I think they will return to each other.”

The Envelope digital cover featuring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal

(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “THE BRIDE!” – Assignment X

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Movie Review: “THE BRIDE!” – Assignment X


By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer


Posted: March 8th, 2026 / 08:00 PM

THE BRIDE movie poster | ©2026 Warner Bros.

Rating: R
Stars: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Penelope Cruz, Jeannie Berlin, Zlatko Burić
Writer: Maggie Gyllenhaal, based on characters created by Mary Shelley and William Hurlbut and John Balderston
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Release Date: March 6, 2026

“THE BRIDE!” (as with the recent “WUTHERING HEIGHTS, the quotation marks are part of the title) is awash in homages, and not just the ones we might reasonably expect in a movie that takes its most obvious inspiration from 1935’s BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

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There’s that, of course, plus its source, Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel FRANKENSTEIN; OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS, and its sober 1931 film adaptation FRANKENSTEIN. But there are also big nods to wilder takes on the legend, including YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and even movies that have nothing to do with FRANKENSTEIN, like BONNIE AND CLYDE.

Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal casts a wide net in metaphors and ideas and looks. Sometimes “THE BRIDE!” is a comedy, sometimes it’s a crime drama, sometimes it’s a love story, occasionally, it’s even a musical.

Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) narrates the tale to us from beyond the grave. She is haughty and naughty, intoxicated by verbiage and her own literary genius. She is going to tell us a story, she says, that she didn’t even dare imagine while alive.

We’re in 1930s Chicago, where a young escort (also Buckley) is having a really awful evening out at a fancy restaurant with some of her peers and a bunch of crass gangsters. Shelley dubs the woman “Ida” and takes possession of her, causing her to speak and act in ways that get her escorted outside. There she stumbles and takes a fatal fall.

The two goons who were with Ida are happy to describe her tumble as the result of their intentional actions to their horrible gangster boss (Zlatko Burić). Ida was suspected of talking to the cops.

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Around the same time, Frankenstein’s creation (Christian Bale) – let’s just call him “Frank,” like everybody else does – comes to Chicago to seek out the groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), whose published works he has read.

Frank wants the doctor to create a companion for him. His appearance is unusual, but the most alarming injuries are covered by clothing, so he’s not as extreme-looking as, say, Boris Karloff in the role. This isn’t about sex, Frank explains when Euphronious asks why he doesn’t just hire a prostitute. After over a century of loneliness, he seeks a soulmate, and he is sure this can only be achieved by reviving a corpse.

So, Euphronious and Frank dig up the grave that turns out to belong to Ida (we never do learn how they know it belongs to a soulmate candidate as opposed to a shot-and-dumped male gangster). Euphronius revives her. Ida remembers how to walk and talk, but not who she is or what happened, so Frank and the doc tell her she’s been in an accident.

Even without Ida’s beauty, Frank is already devoted to the very notion of her. A more accommodating suitor would be hard to find. Frank has another passion, the musical films of Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal, the filmmaker’s brother), a Fred Astaire-like star. Frank imagines himself in the midst of those dance routines, and we get some more within “THE BRIDE!”’s “real” action.

One thing leads to another, Frank and Ida go on the run, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. They are pursued all over the country. Among those seeking them are sad-eyed police detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his secretary Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), who’s better at this whole crime-solving business than he is.

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It’s all very kaleidoscopic and energetic, occasionally impressive and sometimes very funny. Bening as the frazzled, worldly Euphronious has some great moments. Buckley, currently and justifiably Oscar-nominated leading performance in HAMNET, juggles the very unalike personas of Mary and Ida with impact.

Oddly, Bale underplays Frank. We get that he is trying his hardest not to spook Ida (or anyone else), but it seems like he should have a bit more spark. Cruz, going for a snappy ‘30s working woman, has her own style that works.

But in addition to being entertaining and eye-catching, Gyllenhaal has a message that gets very muddled. This is less because it’s so familiar by now that it feels a little redundant, and more because a crucial part of the set-up collides head-on with the feminist slant.

Ida seeks to be her own person, but she is literally bodily controlled by Mary Shelley, who puts her creation in danger with her outbursts. This may help get Ida out of the clutches of the mob, but it is possession, the aftereffects of which the character understandably finds confusing and upsetting.

If Gyllenhaal wanted to discuss or dramatize the clash between what Mary, as a woman, is doing to this other woman, that would make sense, but it seems we’re just meant to somehow overlook this while being immersed in how men control women. The resulting cognitive dissonance adds another layer to a movie that already has more than it can comfortably service.

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Additionally, when Mary has one of her outbursts while inhabiting Ida, the plot comes to a screeching halt until she’s finished. Many viewers will wish Mary would stop declaiming and just let Ida be herself.

“THE BRIDE!” succeeds in being trippy and some of it is memorable. By the end, though, it is more disjointed than even a movie about experiments and a character made up of multiple people’s body parts ought to be.

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‘Sinners,’ ‘The Pitt’ win big at Writers Guild Awards after L.A. ceremony cancellation

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‘Sinners,’ ‘The Pitt’ win big at Writers Guild Awards after L.A. ceremony cancellation

The already highly decorated “Sinners” was among the top winners at the 78th Writers Guild Awards on Sunday in New York City.

The horror film, directed and written by Ryan Coogler, won the award for original screenplay, and its biggest competitor for the best picture Oscar, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” clinched the win for adapted screenplay. “Sinners” star Miles Caton accepted the award for the former, and “One Battle” cast member Shayna McHayle for the latter.

“Sinners” star Miles Caton and “One Battle After Another” actor Shayna McHale accepted the awards for original and adapted screenplay, respectively.

(Cindy Ord / Getty Images for Writers Guild of America East)

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In the TV realm, “The Pitt” made a splash with awards for drama series, new series and episodic drama.

As for lifetime achievement honors, Robert Smigel presented Stephen Colbert with the Walter Bernstein Award for critiquing the power elite on his late-night show, which will air its final episode in May. Terry George received the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Career Achievement from Don Cheadle, and Diana Son earned the Richard B. Jablow Award for Devoted Service to the Guild from last year’s recipient, Kathy McGee.

Most years, the Writers Guild holds simultaneous ceremonies in New York and Los Angeles. But the East Coast edition became a solo affair after WGA West canceled its ceremony amid an ongoing strike by its own staff union, who claimed guild management had “surveilled workers for union activity, terminated union supporters, and engaged in bad faith surface bargaining.”

The L.A. ceremony was set to honor James Cameron with the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, Don Reo with the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement and Mstyslav Chernov with the Paul Selvin Award for “2,000 Meters to Andriivka,” which won the award for documentary screenplay Sunday evening.

While WGA West’s board of directors said the ceremony was postponed to give members “an uncomplicated celebration of their achievements,” the Writers Guild Staff Union characterized the cancellation as an attempt to sow division between management and unionized staff, which is ill-timed given upcoming contraction negotiations between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Hollywood studios and streamers. In 2023, the WGA went on its longest-ever strike, lasting 148 days.

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Comedian and Emmy-nominated producer Roy Wood Jr., who this year hosted the WGA’s East Coast ceremony for the third time, during his opening monologue offered (in jest) his predictions for the negotiations, which begin later this month.

“First, I predict somebody’s gonna lose their s—,” the host said. “Cooler heads are gonna prevail, and then somebody else is gonna lose their s—.”

Here is the full list of Writers Guild Award winners:

Original screenplay: “Sinners,” written by Ryan Coogler; Warner Bro. Pictures

Adapted screenplay: “One Battle After Another,” screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson, screen story by Paul Thomas Anderson, inspired by the novel “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon; Warner Bros. Pictures

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Documentary screenplay: “2,000 Meters to Andriivka,” written by Mstyslav Chernov; Frontline Features

Drama series: “The Pitt,” written by Cynthia Adarkwa, Simran Baidwan, Valerie Chu, R. Scott Gemmill, Elyssa Gershman, Joe Sachs, Noah Wyle; HBO Max

Comedy series: “The Studio,” written by Evan Goldberg, Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck, Frida Perez, Seth Rogen; Apple TV

New series: “The Pitt,” written by Cynthia Adarkwa, Simran Baidwan, Valerie Chu, R. Scott Gemmill, Elyssa Gershman, Joe Sachs, Noah Wyle; HBO Max

Limited series: “Dying for Sex,” written by Sheila Callaghan, Harris Danow, Madeleine George, Elizabeth Meriwether, Amelia Roper, Kim Rosenstock, Sasha Stewart, Sabrina Wu, Keisha Zollar; FX/Hulu

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TV & streaming motion pictures: “Deep Cover,” written by Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow; Prime Video

Animation: “Shira Can’t Cook” (“Long Story Short”), written by Mehar Sethi; Netflix

Episodic drama: “7:00 A.M.” (“The Pitt”), written by R. Scott Gemmill; HBO Max

Episodic comedy: “Prelude” (“The Righteous Gemstones”), written by John Carcieri, Jeff Fradley, Danny R. McBride; HBO Max

Comedy/variety series – talk or sketch: “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” senior writers: Daniel O’Brien, Owen Parsons, Charlie Redd, Joanna Rothkopf, Seena Vali; writers: Johnathan Appel, Ali Barthwell, Tim Carvell, Liz Hynes, Ryan Ken, Sofía Manfredi, John Oliver, Taylor Kay Phillips, Chrissy Shackelford; HBO Max

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Comedy/variety specials: “Marc Maron: Panicked,” written by Marc Maron; HBO Max

Quiz and audience participation: “Celebrity Jeopardy!”, head writer: Bobby Patton; writers: Kyle Beakley, Michael Davies, Terence Gray, Amy Ozols, Tim Siedell, David Levinson-Wilk; ABC

Daytime drama: “The Young and the Restless,” associate head writers: Jeff Beldner, Marla Kanelos, Dave Ryan; writers: Susan Banks, Amanda L. Beall, Marin Gazzaniga, Rebecca McCarty, Madeleine Phillips; CBS/Paramount+

Children’s episodic, long form and specials: “When We Lose Someone” (“Tab Time”), written by Sean Presant; YouTube

Short form streaming: “The Rabbit Hole with Jimmy Kimmel,” writers: Jimmy Kimmel and Jesse Joyce; YouTube

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Documentary script — current events: “Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law” (“Frontline”), written by Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser; PBS

Documentary script — other than current events: “Forgotten Hero: Walter White and the NAACP” (“American Experience”), written by Rob Rapley; PBS

News script — regularly scheduled, bulletin or breaking report: “Devastating Flooding in Texas” (“World News Tonight with David Muir”), written by David Muir, Karen Mooney and Dave Bloch; ABC News

News script — analysis, feature or commentary: “Remembering Palestinian Journalists Killed by Israeli Forces” (“Ayman”), written by Lisa Salinas; MSNBC

Digital news: “An Isolated Boarding School Promised to Help Troubled Girls. Former Students Say They Were Abused.,” written by Sebastian Murdock and Taiyler Mitchell; HuffPost

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Radio/audio documentary: “Jerry Lewis’ Lost Holocaust Clown Movie” (“Decoder Ring”), written by Max Freedman; Slate

Radio/audio news script — regularly scheduled, bulletin or breaking report: “ABC News Radio Top of the Hour News”, written by Robert Hawley; ABC News Radio

Radio/audio news script — analysis, feature or commentary: “The Life and Legacy of Jimmy Carter,” written by Gail Lee; CBS News Radio

On air promotion: “CBS Comedy,” written by Dan Greenberger; CBS

Times staff writers Stacy Perman and Cerys Davies contributed to this report.

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‘Heel’ Review: Why Did Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough Sign on for This Contrived Debacle?

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‘Heel’ Review: Why Did Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough Sign on for This Contrived Debacle?

The original title of “Heel” was “Good Boy.” The new title is probably more accurate, though an even more accurate title might be “Painfully Annoying Punk Idiot.” I jest (a bit), since the title of “Heel” is actually a verb. The film wants to tell the story of a budding hooligan who needs to be brought to heel. That said, does anyone seriously want to see a movie about a 19-year-old British sociopath who gets chained up in a basement so that the weird upper-middle-class couple who’ve kidnapped him can modify his behavior? “Heel” is like “A Clockwork Orange” remade as the year’s worst Sundance movie.

The opening sequence is actually promising. It depicts, in rapidly edited documentary-like montage, a reckless night out on the town by Tommy (Anson Boon) and his friends. They’re hopped-up club kids, and Tommy is their snarling, curly-haired, sexually coercive wastrel ringleader, living in the moment, pouring drinks down his throat, snorting coke and popping pills, dancing and carousing and puking and rutting in the bathroom, pushing himself to a higher and higher high, until he winds up collapsed on the sidewalk — a ritual, we gather, that has happened many times before. Only this time his crumpled body is gathered up by a mysterious stranger.     

When Tommy wakes up, he’s in the basement of a stately stone house somewhere in the British countryside. He’s got a metal collar around his neck, and it’s chained to the ceiling. The film has barely gotten started, and already it’s cut to the second half of “A Clockwork Orange”: Can this monster delinquent be rehabilitated? Theoretically, that’s an interesting question, except that the way this happens is so garishly contrived that we can only go with the movie by putting any plea for reality on permanent hold.

Who are the people who have kidnapped Tommy? Chris (Stephen Graham) is a mild chap in a toupee who goes about his mission with a puckish vengeance disguised as gentility. His wife, Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough), is so neurasthenic she’s like a ghost. (She has suffered some trauma that isn’t colored in.) The two have a cherubic preteen son they call Sunshine (Kit Rakusen). And why, exactly, are they doing what they’re doing? We have no idea. Trying to make a bad person into a good person is not, in itself, a terrible notion, but the conceit of “Heel” — that Tommy is locked in a dungeon, being treated like a dog, because that’s what it will take to change him — is like a toxic right-wing fantasy that the film somehow reconfigures into an implausible liberal “family” allegory.

Ah, plausibility! How unhip to gripe about the absence of it. Yet watching “Heel,” I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief for two seconds. The entire movie, directed by the Polish filmmaker Jan Komasa (“Corpus Christie”) from a script by Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid, is just a grimy monotonous conceit. It’s been thought out thematically but not in terms of recognizable human behavior. It’s like a film-student short stretched out to an agonizing 110 minutes.

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Anson Boon, a charismatic actor who did an okay job of playing Johnny Rotten in Danny Boyle’s TV miniseries “Pistol” (though he never conjured Rotten’s homicidal gleam), infuses Tommy with a loutish energy that in the early scenes, at least, makes him a convincing candidate for either prison or the contemporary equivalent of shock therapy. And yet the character is exhaustingly obnoxious. As a filmmaker, Komasa doesn’t dramatize — he uses one-note traits to clobber the audience. Stephen Graham’s Chris is as quiet and circumspect as Tommy is abrasive. He tries to train Tommy by showing him motivational tapes, and by subjecting him to Tommy’s own depraved TikToks. He then rigs up an elaborate system of gutters on the ceiling so that Tommy, in his metal leash, can wander around the house, a sign that he’s been housebroken.

Tommy has to grow and change, since there wouldn’t be a movie otherwise. In the process, he gets less annoying but also less interesting, because “Heel” sentimentalizes his transformation. Komasa seems to have missed the key irony of “A Clockwork Orange”: that the behavior modification of Alex is as brutalizing as his original state of punk anarchy. In “Heel,” Tommy’s evolution is singularly unconvincing — by the end, he’s practically ready to be the suitor in a Jane Austen drama. But that’s all of a piece with a movie so false it puts the audience in the doghouse.

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