San Francisco’s famed wild parrots, Riz Ahmed, Amanda Peet and a lovestruck mermaid are highlights this week.
Celebrating writer-musician and avian champion Mark Bittner, who died on March 1, the Roxie Theater presents “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill,” the acclaimed 2003 documentary based on his book of the same name, at 3:10 p.m. on Sunday. A Q&A with filmmaker Judy Irving, Bittner’s wife; Bittner’s sister Beth Lyons and Sarah Lemarie of Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue follows the screening. Rescue parrots from Bittner’s flock also will appear. Visit roxie.com.
Shakespeare’s Prince of Denmark is a tormented contemporary Londoner in a new big screen “Hamlet” opening in theaters this week. Directed and reimagined by Aneil Karia, it stars the superb Riz Ahmed. Karia (“Surge”) and screenwriter Michael Lesslie have streamlined Shakespeare’s sprawling tragedy, retaining the language and story and altering a few specifics. Prince Hamlet (Ahmed) is now part of a rich South Asian London family, and Elsinore is a ruthless real-estate corporation that’s evicting a tent city.
When Hamlet, grieving for his recently deceased father, learns that his mother (Sheeba Chaddha) is about to marry Claudius (Art Malik), his uncle, and that his father was murdered by Claudius, he furiously seeks revenge. But his fatal flaw — his indecisive nature — comes into play. Here, Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy is shouted out while he’s driving his BMW recklessly. The oily Polonius (Timothy Spall) and his daughter and Hamlet’s love interest Ophelia (Morfydd Clark) and her brother Laertes (Joe Alwyn) also are featured. But Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Yorick’s skull are missing.
While the filmmakers add fresh, vivid elements including lively South Asian dancing and an opulent Hindu wedding, their abridging robs audiences of some of the play’s joys. Still, the movie has an essential Shakespearean feel and, thanks to Ahmed, impresses as a feverish psychodrama. He ranks among the best actors, from Sarah Bernhardt (in a 1900 silent short) to Laurence Olivier to Kenneth Branagh to Mel Gibson and Ethan Hawke, who’ve portrayed the famed character. His Hamlet is an intense, delirious, anguished prince sinking into madness and displaying a shocking capacity for brutality. He is riveting.
Two New Yorkers with mental health challenges form a romantic friendship in “Fantasy Life,” an appealing dramedy in theaters this week, thanks to Amanda Peet’s affecting performance and actor-turned-director Matthew Shear’s compassionate storytelling. Shear, who also wrote and stars, opts for lightness over anguish in this seriocomic portrayal of anxiety, depression and disappointment.
Shear plays Sam, a law-school dropout who, in an opening scene that typifies the film’s quirky charm, offers to buy a kind woman a hat when she expresses concern as he has panic attack in a bookstore. Peet plays Dianne, the mother of the three girls — the granddaughters of Sam’s psychiatrist (Judd Hirsch) — whom the out-of-work Sam babysits. Dianne, a wealthy, 51-year-old actress whose career has been stalled by depression, clicks with Sam. They spend intimate time together at Dianne’s Manhattan home and on Martha’s Vineyard when Dianne’s emotionally clueless musician husband (Alessandro Nivola) is away.
Though the plot is thin at times, Shear portrays modern connection entertainingly. A dinner-table conversation when Dianne’s Jewish American extended family gets vocal and heated, especially when the topic is Israel, is stellar. Shear, who appeared in Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America” and “While We’re Young,” isn’t bad as an empathetic mess. But Peet, in her first film in a decade, makes the movie successful. Her privileged character could have easily been a turnoff; she makes her a complicated, deserving human being.
Were its pacing any zippier, “ChaO” might overdose on its own pep. But the romantic fantasy from veteran Japanese animator Yasuhiro Aoki and Studio 4°C opening in theaters Friday delivers visual delights and undeniable cuteness as its love story featuring a chipper mermaid and a human engineer unfolds. Memorable line: “I don’t want to marry a fish!”
The Castro Theatre has special movie events on tap. On Thursday at 7:30 p.m., look for a 40th anniversary screening of “Return to Oz,” hosted by Jesse Hawthorne Ficks. Director and famed film editor Walter Murch will appear in an onstage conversation. On Sunday at 2 p.m. the Castro presents “The Princess Bride,” in celebration of filmmaker Rob Reiner’s legacy. On Sunday at 6:30 p.m. “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” screens with writer-director Joe Talbot appearing. Organist David Hegarty performs before all screenings. Visit thecastro.com for more information.
In honor of National Poetry Month, the San Francisco Public Library presents “A Quiet Passion” — Terence Davies’ biodrama starring a terrific Cynthia Nixon as 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson — at noon Thursday in the Koret Auditorium. On April 30, the library screens “The Edge of Each Other’s Battles,” a documentary about Black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde, at 6 p.m. in the Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room. Visit sfpl.org/events/2026.
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