52 Films by Women Vol 9. 50. H is for Hawk (Director: Philippa Lowthorpe)
Grief does not adequately
categorize Helen’s emotional state, nor depression either, though they are
diagnosed with this late in the drama. Fascinated by goshawks from their
student days and sharing their late father’s appreciation of nature, Helen chooses
to displace academia with training a hawk. If they can’t share their life with another
person – and the screen Helen appears to try, taking a date to a dinner held at
the university where they teach – then why not try a different sort of
predator, beautiful, spectacular, requiring special handling and checks on
their weight?
Helen is portrayed
on screen by Claire Foy, who doesn’t so much act but, having a real goshawk strapped
to her hand, replicates part of her character’s experience. It is tense, risky and
always absorbing to watch. The hawk is nominally the star. For two hours we are
in the company of a species that few of us know. We learn that when a goshawk’s
eyes are covered, they don’t attempt to process the world around them, remaining
still. Once able to see, their hunting instinct kicks in. Goshawks do not like
being looked at. They protect food as they pick at it. They need to feel
comfortable – unthreatened - to eat in company. Trained hawks go through a six-month
moulting period where they lose and replace their feathers. Not something you
can do in university accommodation.
From the opening
scenes set in Cambridge, Helen is established as an unconventional lecturer,
summoning their students to pack up their books and head to the pub. Helen leads
them on the walk that scientists James Watson and Francis Crick took in 1953
before announcing the discovery of DNA, having left Rosalind Franklin to toil
in her laboratory, her contribution unacknowledged. Describing Watson and Crick
as ‘wankers’, Helen thoughtfully advises the students not to use that word in
their essays.
Helen shares a love
of the outdoors with their father, Alisdair (Brendan Gleeson, adopting a
Scottish accent), a photographer who refused to retire alongside his wife
(Lindsay Duncan). They phone Dad one morning in 2007 after spotting two
goshawks in flight. In the early part of the film, shots are held slightly
longer than dramatically necessary. Lowthorpe wants us to acclimatise to
patience. Training a hawk takes time, as does processing a close family
member’s death. The audience adjusts to the pace of the film and vicariously
shares Helen’s anxiety.
Helen learns of
their father’s death shortly before going to dinner with her best friend,
Christina (Denise Gough). Helen can barely touch their food. A waiter (Ameer
Davies-Rana) is sensitive to their discomfort and replaces a main with a
dessert – a chocolate brownie with ice cream. ‘Thank you,’ says Helen, leaving
us to wonder whether the gesture was well targeted or woefully inadequate. We
suspect the latter.
Helen prescribes
their own cure – the procurement of a goshawk. They visit an old boyfriend,
Stuart (Sam Spruell) who has moved on and whose partner, Mandy (Emma Cunliffe)
hovers in the background. You sense that Mandy wants to ensure that no flames
are rekindled between the pair. Stuart introduced Helen to goshawks when they
were at university together. He still has his hand in a falconer’s glove,
serving as Helen’s avian advisor and accompanying them when they take a goshawk
out for the first time.
There is a lovely –
if clunky – scene in which Helen takes possession of their bird, accompanied by
Christina. ‘It’s like a drug deal,’ Christina remarks. The dealer parks two
crates in the boot of Helen’s car. He opens one up and invites Helen to remove
the goshawk’s hood. Helen does so awkwardly. ‘I thought you said you’d handled
birds before,’ the dealer snaps. Helen apologises. They look at the bird, who
regards them with suspicion. ‘Sorry, this isn’t your bird,’ the dealer
announces, opening the other box. Helen pleads to be sold the first bird.
‘We’ll have to amend the paperwork,’ the dealer growls.
Carving up raw meat,
Helen struggles to stimulate the goshawk’s appetite. Using old-fashioned
weights on a scale, Helen dismally notes the bird’s thinning physique.
Christina comes to their aid, bringing breakfast. The unnamed goshawk pecks at
a croissant. Helen is ecstatic.
Having been
reluctant to name the bird – ‘I don’t know her yet’ – Helen calls her Mabel.
They take Mabel out for a walk through the backstreets of Cambridge, fastened
tightly to their falconer’s glove. We become sensitive to passing bicycles and
to passers-by, one of whom runs into Helen. The goshawk makes the passer-by (Claudius
Peters) think of his homeland. Every time Mabel flaps her wings, we fear for
Helen.
Throughout the film,
Helen recalls their father. In one scene, driving his car, we are shown Alisdair
stopping to photograph a crime scene and being shooed away by the police. On
the soundtrack, we hear music by The Shadows, a recurring motif; Alisdair seems
stuck in the late 1960s. The cinematographer, Charlotte Bruus Christensen, also
embraces shadows, photographing Foy against windows – a photography no-no. The
effect is to intentionally cover Foy’s face in shadow, so that only her chin,
which seems to reflect light, is clearly shown. The purpose is to present Helen
as if wearing an artificial shroud. It has a secondary function. Helen is a
rule-breaker – no pets on university premises. Christensen’s choice shows that
circumstances – emotional states – require lighting rules to be broken.
Pictured: 'Come on, Mabel.' Helen (Claire Foy) and goshawk in a scene from the British bereavement drama, 'H is for Hawk', adapted from Helen MacDonald's memoir by Emma Donoghue and Philippa Lowthorpe and directed by Philippa Lowthorpe. Still courtesy of Lionsgate.
The most suspenseful
scene involves Helen taking Mabel for a flight, utilising a green space near
some houses. As Mabel welcomes the opportunity, Helen loses their grip on the
string that connects them. Mabel settles onto the branch of a tree. We feel
Helen’s helplessness, how diminished they are in the bonding process. Stuart,
who accompanied Helen, has faith.
The university
regards Helen as a novelty, someone to be invited to lunch – with Mabel,
obviously – then left to stand at the back of the room, Mabel’s wings flapping.
Lowthorpe positions Helen in the top of the frame, unsure whether to stay,
ostracised by their abnormality, the goshawk functioning as a reminder of their
grief.
Increasingly Helen
withdraws from people. Knocks on the door, even from Christina, go unanswered.
In one scene, Helen’s mother, brother and niece visit. ‘You’ve got an ouchie,’
the child remarks, referring to dried blood on Helen’s forehead. They are keen
to see Mabel, who vomits up a lump of waste. This is a film where the messiness
of life and death are included, in which a man declines an opportunity to join Helen
in Berlin, after Helen is invited to apply for a scholarship at Max Planck
University.
Towards the end of
the film, there are two set pieces. The first has Helen deliver a lecture about
the experience of living with Mabel, described as an ‘honest encounter with
nature’. A young man interrupts her, questioning her right to allow the goshawk
to hunt and kill rabbits. Helen does not have a satisfactory answer, explaining
that animals die, ‘we all die’, as if the rabbit’s fate was inevitable. It is a
rude reminder of the catalyst of Helen’s obsession – grief – and also how
easily personal narratives can be soured by conventional thinking. The young
man’s objections are hypothetical; Helen’s words reflect lived experience. Were
the action to take place today, Mabel might be described as an emotional
support goshawk.
Pictured: 'You'll never be bored in here.' Alisdair MacDonald (Brendan Gleeson) delights in the vanilla smell of pages in the Bodlean Library with daughter Helen (Claire Foy) in a scene from the British bereavement drama, 'H is for Hawk', directed by Philippa Lowthorpe. Still courtesy of Lionsgate.
In the second set
piece, Helen gives an eulogy for Alisdair illustrated by his photographs. A
flashback shows his first picture of Helen as a new born baby sleeping in an
incubator. He places it in a folder marked ‘Helen’, affectionately running his
palm down the spine. Another flashback shows Alisdair introducing the family to
a mouse, which he allows to run on his back. He describes his approach to
Helen. ‘When I look through the lens, I no longer think of myself.’ In a
warzone or hanging from a helicopter for an aerial shot, he thinks of himself
as immune to danger. His final photograph, taken as he collapsed, tells a
different story.
Lowthorpe deploys
music (by composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch) fleetingly, replacing it with
natural sound. She doesn’t tug at the audience’s heart strings. In one
emotional scene, she places the camera at a distance. Helen is in the centre of
the frame amongst a crowd of people; Mabel has been left at home. We don’t hear
what’s being said as the camera slowly zooms in. We just see Helen accepting
condolences. Throughout the film, Helen is in denial, refusing to accept that
they have to move out of their home. Christina helps pack as Helen watches home
videos on their laptop while working on their eulogy. Helen sees a psychiatrist,
who asks, ‘Do you neglect your appearance? Are you sad?’ All the time, part of
the day? Helen replies, ‘more than half a day’.
Lowthorpe wrote the
delicate, sometimes witty screenplay with Emma Donoghue, author of Room. The work of every department in the film, including the editing of
bracing flight sequences and production design of Helen’s messy home, is
excellent. Foy and Gough make a formidable double act. However, it is the
goshawk scenes that stay in the memory. Everything about H is for Hawk feels specific and real. Without succumbing
to sentimentality, the filmmakers have risen to the challenge and allow the
audience to understand better the tricky path to mental wellbeing, quoting anchoress
Julian of Norwich along the way.
Reviewed at Screen
One, Curzon Westgate, Canterbury, Kent, Wednesday 4 February 2026, 17:40
screening.
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