H Is for Hawk (2025) Movie Review: Claire Foy Delivers Raw Emotion in an Intimate Yet Overextended Portrait of Grief

H Is for Hawk, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe and co-written by Lowthorpe and Emma Donoghue, brings Helen Macdonald's acclaimed 2014 memoir to the screen with sincerity and visual poetry. Produced by Film4, Saturnia, and Plan B Entertainment, this 115-minute British-American drama stars Claire Foy as Helen Macdonald, a Cambridge academic who processes the sudden death of her beloved father (Brendan Gleeson) by training a wild goshawk named Mabel. The supporting cast includes Sam Spruell, Josh Dylan, Denise Gough, and Lindsay Duncan in roles that orbit around Helen's increasingly isolated world.

After premiering at the Telluride Film Festival and screening at the London Film Festival, the film received a limited December 2025 release from Roadside Attractions in the United States for awards consideration, with a wide release planned for January 23, 2026. Lionsgate handles UK distribution on the same date. This adaptation matters not just as another grief narrative, but as an unconventional exploration of how we cope with devastating loss through seemingly irrational means. In adapting a memoir celebrated for its literary brilliance and interior depth, Lowthorpe faces the considerable challenge of translating profound internal experience into visual storytelling.

Story and Screenplay: An Intimate Journey That Sometimes Loses Its Way

The screenplay by Donoghue and Lowthorpe makes a bold structural choice by dispensing with Alisdair Macdonald's death early in the narrative. After brief scenes establishing the warm relationship between Helen and her photographer father, we're immediately thrust into the aftermath of his sudden passing. This decision allows the film to concentrate on the messy, non-linear reality of grief rather than building toward a predictable emotional climax.

The script employs flashbacks throughout, triggered by small details: a scrape on Alisdair's arm that never healed, the inherited car Helen now drives, the music he loved. These memory fragments paint a picture of a man who was endlessly curious about the world, who taught his daughter to observe nature with patience and wonder. The flashbacks serve dual purposes, deepening our understanding of what Helen has lost while explaining why his absence creates such an unbearable void.

What the screenplay captures beautifully is the strange, almost comical awkwardness of mourning. A restaurant server responds to news of Helen's loss by bringing a tower of desserts, unsure what else to offer. Helen and her brother suppress inappropriate laughter at the funeral director's suggestion of themed coffins decorated with tacky nature designs. These moments ring absolutely true to anyone who has navigated the surreal landscape of early grief.

However, the adaptation struggles with pacing across its two-hour runtime. The book's strength lay in Macdonald's eloquent prose and philosophical digressions into falconry history, literature, and the life of T.H. White. Stripped of that rich interior monologue, the film sometimes feels repetitive, circling the same emotional territory without sufficient forward momentum. The middle section, focused on Helen's day-to-day training of Mabel, becomes somewhat baggy despite the inherent fascination of watching human and raptor gradually build trust.

The screenplay also wrestles with how explicitly to address Helen's mental health. The film takes a gentle, non-clinical approach for most of its runtime, allowing viewers to recognize depression's symptoms through Helen's withdrawal from work, friends, and family. Only in the third act does the script become more direct, including a classroom outburst that feels slightly forced compared to the subtlety preceding it. The ending extends past natural stopping points, as if uncertain how to conclude a story about ongoing healing.

Acting and Characters: Foy Anchors an Authentic Ensemble

Claire Foy delivers a performance of remarkable restraint and authenticity. Her Helen maintains a stiff composure that occasionally cracks, brushing away tears as if they're physical irritants rather than emotional expressions. Foy underwent extensive falconry training for the role, and it shows in every frame. When she looks nervous handling Mabel, that nervousness is genuine. When pride flickers across her face as the hawk responds to her call, that joy is real. There's no faking these interactions with a powerful bird of prey, and this authenticity grounds the entire film.

What makes Foy's work so compelling is how she charts Helen's gradual transformation. We first meet a vibrant professor who takes students to pubs, maintains friendships, and approaches life with engaged curiosity. As grief takes hold, Foy shows us someone dimming incrementally, like a balloon losing air through a slow leak. She becomes increasingly feral while Mabel becomes more controlled, an ironic reversal that Foy navigates with subtle physical changes in posture, vocal tone, and energy level.

Brendan Gleeson's Alisdair appears primarily in flashbacks, but he creates an indelible impression of paternal warmth and artistic passion. Gleeson gives the character a relaxed humanity that prevents him from becoming an overly sentimental symbol of perfect fatherhood. We see his playfulness, his artistic drive, his refusal to retire despite age. The chemistry between Gleeson and Foy feels genuinely familial, making Helen's loss palpable even to viewers who haven't experienced comparable grief.

The supporting ensemble provides strong work in more limited screen time. Denise Gough brings unconditional support and growing concern as best friend Christina, checking in regularly without judgment. Sam Spruell's Stuart, a fellow falconer, offers practical advice while respecting Helen's need to find her own way. Lindsay Duncan appears too briefly as Helen's more emotionally distant mother, though the scenes between mother and daughter crackle with unspoken family dynamics. Josh Dylan makes an impression in scattered appearances as Helen's brother James, particularly during a scene where siblings navigate the bizarre awkwardness of funeral arrangements.

The true supporting star, of course, is Mabel herself, played by trained goshawks. The bird's alien presence, those unblinking eyes and deadly talons, creates a fascinating counterpoint to human emotion. Mabel's fundamental otherness becomes the point, a creature so removed from human concerns that she offers Helen both escape and eventually a mirror reflecting her own need to reconnect with life.

Direction and Technical Aspects: Visual Poetry Meets Patient Observation

Philippa Lowthorpe, known primarily for British television work including The Crown and Call the Midwife, demonstrates confident feature film instincts. Her direction emphasizes patience and observation, qualities essential both to birdwatching and to understanding grief's gradual progression. She refuses to melodramatize Helen's emotional state, instead trusting viewers to recognize depression through accumulating details: the unkempt house, the neglected appearance, the social withdrawal.

Charlotte Bruus Christensen's cinematography becomes a crucial storytelling tool. The contrast between different visual modes creates emotional texture throughout. When Helen works with Mabel in the English countryside, Christensen employs expansive shots of the hawk soaring over forests and fields, the landscape becoming an additional character. These sequences possess documentary-like reverence, capturing genuine moments of predatory grace as Mabel hunts. The visual freedom of these outdoor scenes represents Helen's only current source of joy and release.

In stark contrast, scenes inside Helen's increasingly chaotic home feel claustrophobic and dim. The camera stays close, the frame feels compressed, reflecting Helen's internal state. This visual dichotomy between outdoor liberation and indoor confinement powerfully conveys the protagonist's psychological split without requiring dialogue to explain it.

Mark Payne-Gill's work capturing Mabel in flight deserves particular recognition. The bird's perspective shots, darting through trees and striking prey with precision, are genuinely thrilling. These aren't nature documentary inserts but integral components of the narrative, showing us what draws Helen so completely into this world. The technical achievement of filming these sequences while maintaining dramatic coherence is considerable.

Production design by an uncredited team creates lived-in authenticity. Helen's academic environment at Cambridge feels properly institutional, her inherited car full of her father's small possessions, her home gradually descending into clutter as her focus narrows to Mabel alone. The attention to period detail for the 2007 setting (including early Twitter usage) grounds the story without calling attention to itself.

Trailer H Is for Hawk (2025)

Music and Atmosphere: Subtle Enhancement of Emotional Landscape

The score works with unusual restraint, understanding that silence often serves grief better than orchestral swells. When music does emerge, it underscores rather than overwhelming, supporting emotional moments without dictating how viewers should feel. The sound design proves equally thoughtful, from Mabel's screeches and wing beats to the ambient sounds of English countryside and Cambridge streets.

Lowthorpe creates an overall atmosphere of gentle melancholy punctuated by moments of connection, both with nature and with memory. The tone never becomes oppressively bleak, maintaining space for small moments of humor and human warmth even as Helen withdraws. The film captures something true about depression: how it can coexist with functional behavior, how someone can seem fine on the surface while drowning internally.

The atmospheric choices reflect Helen's professional background as a historian of science. There's an observational quality to the filmmaking, as if we're studying rather than merely watching. This approach suits the subject matter, though it occasionally creates emotional distance that some viewers may find frustrating.

Strengths and Weaknesses

What Works:

• Claire Foy's deeply committed, authentic performance that required genuine falconry skills
• Brendan Gleeson's warm portrayal creating believable father-daughter chemistry
• Stunning cinematography contrasting expansive countryside with claustrophobic interiors
• Smart use of flashbacks to deepen emotional understanding without manipulation
• Genuine tension and fascination in scenes of Helen training Mabel
• Honest depiction of grief's awkwardness and social discomfort
• Visual storytelling that shows rather than tells psychological states
• Supporting ensemble that enriches without overwhelming the central story
• Refusal to melodramatize or simplify the grief process
• Technical excellence in filming sequences with live birds of prey

What Doesn't Work:

• Pacing issues that make the 115-minute runtime feel longer
• Repetitive middle section that circles similar emotional territory
• Overreliance on flashbacks that diminish in impact through overuse
• Extended ending that continues past natural conclusion points
• Loss of the memoir's rich literary and philosophical dimensions
• Some supporting characters feel underdeveloped despite strong performances
• Third-act classroom outburst feels slightly forced compared to earlier subtlety
• Emotional distance created by observational style may frustrate some viewers
• Occasionally precious tone that doesn't quite earn its moments
• Incomplete sense of resolution that may leave audiences unsatisfied

Final Verdict: A Flawed But Affecting Portrait of Unconventional Healing

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

H Is for Hawk earns a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, reflecting strong performances and technical craft hampered by pacing issues and the inherent challenge of adapting a deeply interior memoir. The consensus among critics acknowledges the film's beauty and sincerity while noting its tendency to overextend and its inability to fully capture what made the source material exceptional.

Those who will find the most value in this film include readers of Macdonald's memoir curious to see the story visualized, anyone who has experienced profound grief and found solace in unconventional places, nature enthusiasts fascinated by birds of prey and falconry, and admirers of Claire Foy's work looking for another demonstration of her considerable range. The film will also appeal to viewers who appreciate patient, observational filmmaking that trusts audiences to find their own emotional connections without heavy-handed guidance.

However, those seeking a tightly paced narrative with clear resolution may find H Is for Hawk frustratingly meandering. Viewers who prefer their grief dramas more emotionally direct and cathartic will likely struggle with the film's restrained approach and somewhat opaque protagonist. Those unfamiliar with the book who expect a conventional healing journey complete with definitive breakthroughs and triumphant moments of closure will find the film's ambiguous, ongoing process unsatisfying. Additionally, anyone looking for deeper exploration of supporting characters or more balanced ensemble work will notice how completely the film centers on Helen's isolated experience.

What H Is for Hawk ultimately achieves is an honest acknowledgment that healing from devastating loss doesn't follow neat narrative arcs. Helen's choice to immerse herself in falconry isn't presented as the right answer or wrong answer but simply as her answer, one that eventually allows her to begin facing what she's been avoiding. The film suggests that sometimes we need to run toward something equally wild and demanding to eventually find our way back to ourselves.

Claire Foy's commitment to the role extends beyond learning to handle a goshawk. She inhabits a woman who cannot or will not articulate her pain, who finds it easier to establish trust with a predatory bird than with the humans who love her. That Foy makes this character sympathetic despite her increasingly antisocial behavior speaks to both her talent and the screenplay's refusal to judge Helen's process. The film's technical accomplishments, particularly Christensen's cinematography, ensure that even when the narrative drags, there's visual interest to sustain attention. The sequences of Mabel hunting possess genuine power, brief windows into a world of pure instinct and survival that offers Helen temporary escape from human complexity and hurt.

For all its flaws, H Is for Hawk offers something increasingly rare: a meditation on grief that resists easy answers and comfortable resolution. It trusts that some viewers will recognize themselves in Helen's particular path through darkness, even if that path looks nothing like their own. The film may not soar as high as its source material or its talented lead performance deserves, but it achieves enough altitude to be worth the flight.