Dir: Philippa Lowthorpe. UK. 2025. 115mins
Reviewed by Meredith Taylor
Nature lovers should flock to this thoughtful adaptation of Helen Macdonald’s best-selling book about a grieving woman and her determined efforts to tame a goshawk. The goshawk is a sharp-eyed and elusive woodland native of the British Isles and the star-turn of this fascinating nature drama that sees Clare Foy pitting her wits against the feral raptor.
Tippi Hedren was terrified of the birds in Hitchcock’s iconic avian thriller but here Foy’s Helen, a reclusive academic, proves more than a match for the ferocious beast named Mabel. But her patience is severely tested, as we discover in Philippa Lowthorpe’s latest feature.
The bird provides just the right challenge for the Cambridge academic who, following the sudden death of her beloved father Alisdair (Brendon Gleeson), channels her overwhelming grief into training the goshawk, a raptor well known for its tricky obstinacy.
Although it skirts over some elements in the original book Lowthorpe’s cinematic version is never sentimental but combines this stoical story of bereavement with a captivating wildlife feature and its impressive photography. Well-paced and as gripping as Mabel’s claws the film also serves as a trenchant tale of tragic loss for Helen who is not particularly close to her mother (Lindsay Duncan) or brother and unable to express her grief in a more outward way at the loss of her father. Instead she processes her sorrow by immersing herself into the rigours of training the wild animal in scenes that are often alarming, and these combine with flashbacks of her strong rapport with her father showing their jokey camaraderie.
Meanwhile Helen’s obsession distances her from friends and family shutting out the wider world and causing her mother worry to needlessly: Helen is certainly her own person. Here her close girlfriend Christina (Denise Gough) steps into the breech to save the day in this enjoyable meditation on how one woman copes with tragedy.
IN CINEMAS FROM 9 January 2026