HAMLET DOESN'T NEED to be modernized; it's always as modern as we are. Shakespeare's strange language, often misunderstood as merely archaic, is in fact a kind of personalized code. Far from being merely flowery or ornate or old-fashioned, Hamlet is a packed text, in which every word invents new meanings for itself and links into the larger matrix of the play's endless possibilities. Shakespeare renders language so exact it's universal, and the result is a text that stays new forever. There is no definitive version of Hamlet, and there can't be, no matter how unabridged the text, because no single production could explore all the possibilities the play presents. Hamlet has transcended its medium to become a medium unto itself.

The wise director understands that there is no way to entirely express Hamlet, and intuitively senses the ontological pitfalls of strictly "faithful" productions (like a painter painting about painting). That director is now free to work in the medium of Hamlet, using Hamlet to illuminate and examine some issue outside the play itself.

Michael Almereyda is a wise director. His new film version of Hamlet manifests in the Manhattan of 2000, and concerns a listless young film student battling against a dehumanizing corporation called Denmark. As played by Ethan Hawke, Hamlet is the archetypal film geek, subclass New York: black-clad, solitary, and defiantly morose in the face of his cushy upbringing. He carries a digital camera with him everywhere, and spends hours holed up in his bedroom at the Hotel Elsinore, reviewing his footage. He's in the grips of late-phase art school anxiety: Having committed himself to art, he's worried that he doesn't have anything to say. Mourning the death of his father and the untimely remarriage of his mother, he commits private acts of performance art for his camera (the famous soliloquies), hunting for something authentic or unique in himself; he struggles to find a struggle. He has become so self-absorbed in this search for meaning and purpose that, when a purpose finally arrives in the form of a harsh directive from his father's ghost, Hamlet implodes into a shriveled wreck of self-doubt.

Ethan Hawke's rendition of Hamlet capitalizes on the real-guy persona he's been developing onscreen for his entire career. There is an ironic quality to this persona: He seems to play Ethan Hawke playing a character. In Hamlet, the young prince is doing exactly that--performing versions of himself--because he truly doesn't know who he is, he doesn't know how to be.

By arming Hamlet with a camera-- the ultimate icon of self-awareness--Almereyda literalizes the swarming buzz inside Hamlet's head. Slumped at his digital editing bay, Hamlet scrolls past images of his father, freezing portraits of Ophelia, but always comes back to himself. The additional visual information illustrates Hamlet's confusion without resolving his ambiguous emotional relationships. Hamlet gets close enough to film his family, but it prevents him from actually interacting with them; his narcissism is so great that, even when the camera is turned outward, the subject is himself by virtue of his absence.

Almereyda has made bold cuts in the text, a fact that will always cause purists to grumble. But his Hamlet is unquestionably improved by the cuts; the space he clears in the text keeps the additional visual information from overcrowding the film, and strengthens the bonds between the remaining passages. There's more than enough Hamlet to go around; Almereyda's abridged version adheres to the medium, allowing the film not only to be modern, but to explore the timeless relevancy of the play itself.