Philippa Lowthorpe is good at giving actors time and real lives careful attention. We value that patience, but H Is for Hawk shows how readily her consideration can soften a story that needs to hurt.
Fi1m perspective
In H Is for Hawk (2025), Brendan Gleeson stands in a field with a small girl, waiting for something to show itself. We were moved more than we expected because he takes her curiosity seriously and Lowthorpe gives his stillness time to work. He is playing Helen Macdonald’s father in one of the film’s childhood flashbacks. This is Lowthorpe at her most persuasive: trusting an actor to hold our attention without insisting that he do much.
Her move from documentary into drama with Eight Hours from Paris (1997) has largely meant continuing to work with real lives. Five Daughters (2010) and Three Girls (2017) established her reputation for treating those lives with sensitivity and intimacy. There have been fictional departures, including Swallows and Amazons (2016), but they remain exceptions. She also directed two episodes of the second series of The Crown (2016), in 2017. We recommend that programme for its precise acting and its attention to royal duty intruding on private life, while finding its solemnity wearing at times.
The danger of all this care is clearest in H Is for Hawk, which Emma Donoghue adapted from Macdonald’s memoir. Claire Foy’s Helen and the goshawk she buys after her father’s death give the film much of its interest, but the adaptation removes too much of the book’s anger. Lowthorpe allows oddness without quite allowing her central character to be difficult. We noted the same clean, considerate surface in Misbehaviour (2020); here it keeps grief from hurting as it should.
Editor Nico Leunen returns to the childhood flashbacks so regularly that their emotional effect begins to feel prescribed. The first quiet encounter gives us room to respond; repetition makes the intention too obvious, and the film’s 120 minutes need a firmer cut. Lowthorpe’s attention to Foy’s work with the bird is better rewarded: the woman and the goshawk can hold our attention without another reminder of what Helen has lost. Approach H Is for Hawk for the performances, with patience for the extra half-hour.
Biography
Philippa Lowthorpe is an English film and television director. Born on 27 December 1961 near Doncaster in Yorkshire, she grew up in Lincolnshire and studied classics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. She began her career making documentaries for BBC Bristol before moving into drama.
Her television credits include directing episodes of Call the Midwife (2013–2014), for which she won a BAFTA Television Craft Award, The Crown (2017), Three Girls (2017), which earned her a further BAFTA for directing, and Prisoner 951 (2025). Feature films include Swallows and Amazons (2016), Misbehaviour (2020) and H Is for Hawk (2025), which she also co-wrote.
