Look who's hawking...

CLAIRE FOY IS ON TOP FORM AS A GRIEVING DAUGHTER WHO TAKES ON A BIRD OF PREY IN THE AFTERMATH OF HER FATHER'S DEATH

- REVIEWS BY DAMON SMITH

ON THE WINGS OF LOVE: Claire Foy as Helen with Mabel the goshawk

A GRIEF-STRICKEN university fellow ruffles feathers when she buys a goshawk to cope with the death of a parent in director Philippa Lowthorpe's touching drama adapted from Helen Macdonald's memoir.

Buoyed by a tremendous lead performance from Claire Foy, H Is For Hawk is an intimate and melancholic study of loss, both of a soulmate and oneself.

In 2007 Cambridge, Jesus College academic Helen Macdonald (Claire Foy) is devastated when her father Alisdair (Brendan Gleeson), a celebrated press photographer who nurtured her love of natural science, dies suddenly from a heart attack.