[1] The film centres on a group of actors who are convening for a wake following the death of Gabor Zazlov (Nicholas Campbell), who had been their director in a production of Hamlet that collapsed several years earlier; the gathering, requested by Gabor shortly before his death, is in fact a ploy to restore his damaged reputation by forcing the cast to stage a filmed reading of the play, in the hopes that their petty dramas and recriminations will ultimately reveal the real reasons why the production failed.
[2] The cast includes Tara Nicodemo as Gabor's widow Hanna; Graham Abbey as Tyler, who had been cast as Prince Hamlet in the original production and has since gone on to become a character actor in Hollywood; Krista Sutton as Maya, who was the Ophelia and has since left acting to become a mother and teacher; Sarain Boylan as Danielle, a provocatively dressed and cocaine-addicted actress who claims that Gabor raped her; Raoul Bhaneja as Raj, a closeted gay actor whose jealousy at being passed over for the role of Hamlet led him to approach the press with the allegations that derailed the production; Martha Burns as Sabina, the philanthropist who had funded the production; and Kristopher Turner as Chad, Gabor and Hanna's son who arrives home from a trip to Europe during the event without knowing that his father has died.
[1] Linda Barnard of the Toronto Star called the film uneven, but wrote that "Buitenhuis deserves praise for a brave and unconventional approach to making A Wake.
"[3] Jennie Punter of The Globe and Mail wrote that the cast "stay on topic and offer some nice moments of character revelation, but something is missing: an understanding, on an emotional level, of why Gabor still has such a hold on them.
"[2] Susan G. Cole of Now negatively reviewed the film, writing that "the situation and the dialogue – invented by the cast itself – are so ludicrous that they make even the brilliant Graham Abbey, as the only actor among them who made it to L.A., a bore.