It all begins with courtship. Young Agnes (Jessie Buckley) walks through the forest with her tamed falcon and meets William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), a rural young man without a serious job. He pursues her persistently, impressed by her devotion to the countryside, and undaunted by the rumours of witchcraft in her family. The couple becomes engaged, angering William’s mother (the brilliant Emily Watson). Agnes moves into William’s family home and soon gives birth to three children: first Susanna and then twins Judith and the titular Hamnet. The tragic loss of Hamnet at a young age throws the family into turmoil.
Co-written by Maggie O’Farrell (the author of the eponymous novel) and director Chloé Zhao, Hamnet is not a film about Shakespeare and literature, but instead one about his wife Agnes (whose real name was Anne Hathaway). Jessie Buckley handles superbly the role of a woman for whom motherhood represents both the primary purpose of life and doom. Zhao shows childbirth with vigour and vim. The first time, Agnes literally runs off to give birth under a forest tree, underscoring the otherworldly and magical essence of the character. The second birth scene too is not without an enchanted and elevated presence. It is with Agnes that the filmmaker and the writers repeatedly ask viewers to empathise.
William is almost entirely absent from his wife’s life, leaving for London to work in the theatre. Paul Mescal is not required to play a great genius, but rather a man who breaks away from his family in search of creative freedom. The Irish helmer and his attire are not entirely convincing. At times, he looks like a modern-day hipster dressed up in period costume. His interaction with the children is moving, but they are resolved in the spirit of Tolstoy’s dictum that “all happy families resemble one another”. The misfortune that befalls the Shakespeare family is entirely predictable, and the pace of the developments feels strangely calculated.
The static cinematography often recalls Zhao’s Best Picture Academy winner Nomadland (2020). Close-ups of Jessie Buckley’s face works to the film’s advantage. The actress conveys the subtlest of emotions with meaningful expressions – particularly in the movie’s final scene. Polish cinematographer Lukasz Zal (of Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest, 2023, and Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War, 2018) excels at capturing forest landscapes, plains fractured with small groves, and the poetry of rural life. He strikes the perfect balance between the fresh and the dirty.
The staging of Shakespeare’s Hamlet takes place in the film’s much-hyped final act. It proposes art as a vessel for grief. The relationship between life and text avoids specificities. The film refuses to articulate a position – philosophical or emotional – beyond the vague reassurance that art helps us to endure pain. What reads as elegance may equally be interpreted as hesitation.
Ultimately, Hamnet asks to be felt rather than questioned. Its seriousness is undeniable and its craft meticulous, but its emotional curve leaves little room for contradiction, ambiguity and intellectual friction. Zhao presents grief as a static condition rather than a destabilising force – something to be honoured and aesthetically framed. Just not something to wrestle with. For a story ostensibly about loss reshaping language, Hamnet remains curiously cautious. It is a film of soft surfaces and restrained pain – beautiful, sincere, and respectful – but also distant, overworked, and unwilling to risk disorder in pursuit of truth.
Hamnet is in cinemas on Friday, January 9th. A favourite for the awards season.
