“Hamlet” will never be the same. Watching Director Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet” will change the way you fundamentally understand the classic play, Shakespeare as a person, and the way art connects us to our own humanity. As a disclaimer, this review contains extensive spoilers.
Based on the book of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell, “Hamnet” follows William Shakespeare, his wife Agnes, and their daughters after the heartbreaking loss of their son, Hamnet. Set among the stunning, dreamlike wilderness and the dreary, dirty streets of Stratford-upon-Avon, “Hamnet” can’t help but feel painfully real.
Shakespeare is almost a mythical figure in the cultural zeitgeist, especially among high school students forced to read his plays. “Hamnet”, unlike another fictionalized Shakespeare movie, “Shakespeare in Love,” is less about the celebrated, accomplished artist and more about Shakespeare the person. In fact, the name Shakespeare is only used in the final scenes of the movie, and his legacy as one of the greatest writers of all time simply murmurs in the background.
Shakespeare is merely Will, an awkward, frustrated, and not especially eloquent young man. Paul Mescal’s Will is quiet and introspective, oppressed by the expectations of his father, who wants him to follow the family tradition and work as a glove maker. He is a young, insecure artist and a man desperately in love. It’s a Shakespeare that resonates more than any iteration before it. While watching “Hamnet,” I saw Shakespeare for the first time as a normal person who lived a life full of angst, love, quiet family bliss, art, and unimaginable tragedy.
However, “Hamnet” is ultimately not Shakespeare’s movie. “Hamnet” is the story of Agnes Hathaway, a woman born in the forest, raised by a healer, and highly attuned to the quiet rumblings of the natural world. She is not just Shakespeare’s wife; she is her own complex and beautiful force of nature. Jessie Buckley’s performance is a tour de force, a once-in-a-generation occurrence. She portrays the “beautiful chaos of a mother’s love,” as she described it in her Oscar acceptance speech, in a way that no other actor ever could.
It is not just her cries that transcend the two-dimensional screen, but every single glance, every moment she looks at her children. Every pixel of this movie is filled with indescribable love, the love of Chloé Zhao, the actors, the characters, and the outpouring of love that every person who witnesses this film can’t help but experience. “Hamnet” resonates so profoundly because it conveys how impossible it is to articulate pain while simultaneously being one of the best depictions of grief I have ever seen. Everything is said in the moments where nothing is said at all.
Early on in the movie, as their romance is just beginning, Agnes asks Will to tell her a story. He replies with the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, the story of how Orpheus loses his love forever simply by turning around to look at her. In response to the tale, a moment of quiet fills the space between them, and a bleary-eyed and awed Agnes tells Will that that was “a good story.” The serenity of this scene, the space, quiet, and solemnity that Zhao allows, pervades the entire film. Putting this story early in the film is nothing short of brilliant. The tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, like “Hamnet,” is a story about unjust, life-shattering loss.
Conversely, the parallel between the stories is not so consistent aside from that. During their wedding, before Agnes walks down the aisle, she whispers “look at me” toward the back of her soon-to-be husband, who turns to look at her. Agnes tells William to “look at her” many times throughout the film, effectively subverting the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.
After the loss of their son Hamnet, Agnes and William fail to understand how the other is processing their grief. Agnes resents Will for being absent during the death of their son, while Will buries himself even further into his art. Agnes perceives his obsession with his plays as evidence that he cares more for them than he does for their late son. However, understanding between them comes through the premiere of Will’s play “Hamlet.” When Agnes begrudgingly attends the play, her understanding of Will and our interpretation of the classic play are changed forever. Instead of using his art to escape his pain, William used his art to articulate it. The names Hamlet and Hamnet were essentially interchangeable during the time period, and as we and Agnes watch the play, it is evident that every word is dedicated to Hamnet.
One of the most beautiful moments of the movie is when Will, dressed as the ghost of Hamlet’s father, speaks to Hamlet. As he tells Hamlet of his traitorous and murderous brother, we, as the audience, can’t help but perceive a father saying goodbye to his son. As Hamlet soliloquizes and battles on the stage, Agnes can’t help but see in Hamlet the person her son never got to be. As Hamlet duels Laertes, the play references earlier scenes in the film when Will was teaching Hamnet how to sword fight and when Hamnet told his mother that all he ever wanted to be was “one of father’s players.” Agnes is spellbound by the performance.
In Hamlet’s final lines, as Hamlet comes to terms with his imminent death, Agnes reaches out and takes Hamlet’s hand. It’s a simple gesture that communicates the entire breadth of the film. In response to her quiet act of complete understanding and empathy, the entire theater, every single person in the crowd, reaches out a hand toward Hamlet. As Hamlet grapples with death and grief, they reach out to him because grief is a universal, inescapable, endless, inexplicable, and often isolating pain. When Agnes takes his hand, we are reminded of how she held her son during his dying breath. She looks at Will as the play concludes. As they look at one another, in complete contradiction to the Orpheus and Eurydice archetype, they save one another. Through art, through Hamlet, Agnes and Will understand each other’s pain.
Although some may criticize the film’s devastating pace, I think every scene carries profound depth and richness. The slow, strophic cadence of the film enables every acting choice, every line, and every shot to breathe, a quality that is too absent from so many current films. I couldn’t recommend this film enough to anyone looking for a life-changing experience, anyone who has felt isolated by pain, and wants to be inspired by the awesome power of art to unite us. Few films communicate our shared humanity and connect us so deeply. I truly hope it becomes a beloved classic, for it is films like “Hamnet” that remind us of the understanding that art provides, of our immense capacity for empathy, and that we are not alone in our suffering.
