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Posted 1/23/2026
Directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, H is for Hawk is a breathtaking adaptation of Helen Macdonald’s celebrated memoir, exploring the primal intersection of human grief and the natural world. Claire Foy stars as Helen, a Cambridge scholar who is shattered by the sudden death of her father, Alisdair (Brendan Gleeson). To cope with her spiraling depression, Helen makes the radical decision to purchase Mabel, a northern goshawk—a bird of prey known for being notoriously fierce and difficult to tame. The film documents their months of seclusion, using visceral, naturalistic cinematography to capture the grueling labor of falconry. As Helen trains the hawk, she undergoes a psychological "untaming" of her own, retreating from society to find a raw, wordless connection that mirrors her internal state of mourning.
The narrative masterfully weaves together Helen’s present struggle with evocative flashbacks of her father, portraying a bond built on a shared passion for the wild. Rather than a sentimental animal story, the film is a stark meditation on the indifference of nature and how that very indifference offers a path toward healing. Foy’s performance is being hailed as a tour de force, capturing the jagged, unsentimental reality of a woman on the edge of a breakdown. By the time the story concludes, H is for Hawk reveals itself as a profound study of endurance and renewal, showing that rediscovering one’s humanity often requires a temporary descent into the wild.
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