Grand Theft Hamlet | To Press B or not to Press B…

Lockdown is a huge cultural event that’s rarely explored or mentioned in our media, by many it’s seen as a blip in life a few years ago that even a mention of ‘covid’ in a film is enough to garner a sigh or eye-roll. It seems that collectively, even though it’s still very much a current thing, we just want to forget it and move on, almost like we share a hope in suspending our disbelief that our favourite fictional characters were spared from a world where COVID-19 exists. Meaning that it takes a specific kind of art to explore what it was like living through it, to hold up a mirror and make you confront the radical change in life over those months… and my goodness is it cathartic. Even if retrospectively, the documentary Grand Theft Hamlet showcases that the isolation wasn’t a singular experience as it celebrates bringing people together when we had to stay apart.

Art became a lifeline

When thinking of lockdown art, Bo Burhnam’s INSIDE or the BBC’s Staged are two that instantly spring to mind, but as we all locked ourselves away from the world to protect one another, art became a lifeline to help us all get through it. Video Games, Music, Poetry, Films etc, whether creating or consuming, I know I found it integral to maintaining some semblance of mental health. Grand Theft Hamlet perfectly explores the trials and tribulations of this turbulent time through two friends playing Grand Theft Auto V online together and after coming across an outdoor theatre in the virtual open world, they decide to try and put on Los Santos’ first Shakespeare production for other players to come and watch in-game.

Charming

If that sounds strange, funny, or bizarre, you’d be right. The film could not be more charming, the two friends in question Mark Oosterveen and Sam Crane, are both professional actors and so with theatres closed, where better for them to stretch their thespian muscles and perform? The film explores that yearning to create. Not shying away from the setbacks and logistical issues that get in the way of trying to put your whole heart into a creative endeavour. Especially how it can take over your life, straining the relationships with people outside the project. You grow a strong connection with Mark and Sam, especially as Sam’s partner Penny Grylls (a documentary filmmaker) starts to document and co-direct the film with Sam as their relationship is tested too.

Emotional connection

Video games often get a bad rap. Just with books when they were first released and with cinema when that was invented, it’s because we are still so early in the medium’s life that some unjustly look down on it. Some of the stories that have touched my soul and spoken to me the most have been interactive digital experiences, so to see the (unfairly viewed) ‘low art’ of GTA V interacting with the ‘high art’ of Shakespeare is an interesting mash-up that shows more and more that it’s less about the medium of how a story is told but how it emotionally connects with you that matters.

Brilliantly paced

I’m a child of YouTube, being a part of the first generation to grow up connecting on the video platform, let’s plays/speedruns/comedy skits are all so commonplace I at first wondered if a feature-length one would be able to justify this runtime. It certainly does as you follow them put this production together, all the way from auditions and location scouting, to rehearsals, it never gets boring and is brilliantly paced which could not have been easy in the edit room. I was lucky enough to catch the film at the 68th BFI London Film Festival and seeing GTA V footage projected on the big screen still feels surreal. Especially as you only see the gameplay and hear the voices of those involved, showing that they become their in-game avatars almost nad keeping the experience authentic to what it’s like connecting through a video game.

Intimate and gentle

As I’m sure everyone can relate to, lockdown certainly had an impact on folks’ mental health, so to see the friends come together, both with themselves and each other, is the catharsis we need to help shake some of the shared mental health issues that remain unaddressed after lockdown. So to see it explored is still important. To not push those emotions away and sweep them under the rug but to confront them, examine them, and process them. Grand Theft Hamlet intimately and gently gets you to process your own Covid experience and come to terms with that time by cathartically seeing these people go through theirs.

Beautiful and heartfelt

This is a beautiful, heartfelt time capsule of a strange time in our lives and what two friends did to come together when it was impossible to do that physically. It’s honest, funny, and uplifting. Not to be too cheesy but based around a game famous for stealing cars, this film certainly steals your heart.

Big up ParTeb, my man, seems like a lovely bloke.

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Jacob Saul

Jacob Saul is a writer, director, editor.

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