After losing her beloved father, Helen finds herself saved by an unlikely friendship with a stubborn hawk named Mabel.

‘H is for Hawk’ is a British drama from director Philippa Lowthorpe, based on the memoir by British author and naturalist Helen Macdonald. It tells the true story of Helen’s life after the passing of her father, and how she attempted to cope with that grief by making a decision to buy and train a Goshawk. Turning to falconry is not a typical approach to dealing with grief, but Helen is not a typical person, and her best memories of her father are tied to the time they spent together out in the countryside admiring the beauty of the landscapes and the animals, birds and insects that called it their home. The film juxtaposes Helen’s personal struggles with the challenges of taming and training a tough bird, and I thought this was a quietly moving piece of work.

Claire Foy leads as Helen and she delivers an excellent, raw performance, aided no doubt by her decision to undertake falconry training in preparation for the role. Solid support comes from Sam Spruell, Denise Gough and Lindsey Duncan, with Brendan Gleeson perfectly cast as her father Alisdair who we see largely through flashbacks. At its heart, ‘H is for Hawk’ is about grief and about how someone copes with and tries to find a replacement for something that they’ve lost, which Helen does through her experiences with Mabel the Goshawk. She picks a Goshawk because it’s the toughest of birds to tame, and because in a way, it brings her closer to her father, but the film does not pretend that this is a quick fix for her emotional troubles that have clearly been bubbling within her long before her father passed away.

As mentioned, Foy and the supporting performances are excellent, as are the wonderful scenic shots of the English countryside where the beauty and harshness of nature is shown through the Goshawk’s flight and hunting instincts. I thought ‘H is for Hawk’ was a very strong film that deals with grief in a thoughtful and interesting way, with a keen exploration of how fulfilling a relationship between a human and an animal can be.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: Philippa Lowthorpe

Starring: Claire Foy, Brendan Gleeson, Denise Gough, Sam Spruell and Lindsay Duncan

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt10329560/