David Tennant's Hamlet is an example of a Hamlet who uses his cunning and wit to "feign" madness and use it to his advantage. Tennant frequently talks to himself to work out his problems which brings him to epiphanies. One example of this is Act 1 scene 5 after he first meets his father's ghost, Tennant plots and schemes how he plans of exacting his revenge against Claudius almost like an evil genius. Tennant also speaks, at times, directly to the camera which gives the allusion that he knows this is a movie and is therefore smarter than the other characters.
Hamlet Directed By Gregory Doran (2009)
David Tennant as Hamlet in Gregory Doran's 2009 film.
Reviews
"Tennant's performance, in short, emerges from a detailed framework. And there is a tremendous shock in seeing how the lean, dark-suited figure of the opening scene dissolves into grief the second he is left alone: instead of rattling off "O that this too too sullied flesh would melt", Tennant gives the impression that the words have to be wrung from his prostrate frame. Paradoxically, his Hamlet is quickened back to life only by the Ghost; and the overwhelming impression is of a man who, in putting on an "antic disposition", reveals his true, nervously excitable, mercurial self."
"Tennant is an active, athletic, immensely engaging Hamlet. If there is any quality I miss, it is the character's philosophical nature, and here he is not helped by the production.
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"He seized the role of the young man haunted by his father's ghost with both hands and ran with it. Literally."
"Overall, his performance is undoubtedly mesmerising. What he lacks in emotional intensity, he makes up for with wit, humour and stirring energy."
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"As a student prince, who swaps his formal suit of mourning for jeans and T-shirt in Gregory Doran's sometimes brutally cut production, he captures the character's intelligence, wit and quicksilver mood changes."
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