Hamnet, or Hamlet, the name of Shakespeare’s son, the title of, perhaps, his most famous play.
In fact, we know very little about Shakespeare’s private life. He was from Stratford-on-Avon, he married Anne Hathaway, had an older daughter, Susanna, and twins, one of whom was Hamnet who died of the plague, very young.
What we have in this film, most arrestingly, is Shakespeare’s story as reimagined through the imagination of Northern Ireland’s novelist, Maggie O’Farrell, her 2020 novel. Oscar-winning director for Nomadland, Chloe Zhao, worked with the novelist on the screenplay, presenting a more straightforward telling of the story, especially of Shakespeare’s wife, here called Agnes.
Agnes is a child of nature, a wild child, said to be connected with witches, knowing the seasons, cultivating fruits and able to make potions. And, she is played by Jessie Buckley, one of her many and varied excellent performances (and Jessie Buckley is also Irish, as is Paul Mescal who plays Shakespeare, quietly restrained). Will Shakespeare teaches at the local school, encounters Agnes, is caught up in the magic of her personality and they marry.
This story has her staying in Stratford, giving birth to her children, sometimes with great stress, loving her husband but knowing that he has a creative talent, likes to write in his room, gives her assent that he should go to London and develop his work in the theatre. (It is only later in the film that Agnes and the audience eventually come to London.)
Agnes delights in her children, especially the twins, and the likeable and lively Hamnet (attractively played by Jacob Jupe). Hamnet is devoted to his father, practices swordfights, the children doing a rendition of the opening speech of Macbeth’s witches.
But, the plague, and Hamnet willing to take the place of his sick sister, the sadness of his death, Shakespeare’s absence, his being away eventually take its toll on Agnes’s emotions.
The major part of the film stays in Stratford, the green wildness of the forests, the glimpse of the Tudor streets and houses and church spire. But, when Agnes does go to London, sees the crowds coming into the Globe theatre, pushes her way to the stage, and the performance of Hamlet begins, this becomes most moving.
For this reviewer, this last part of the film is one of the most deeply memorable in cinema, Agnes watching as the play unfolds, the theme of death, absence, ghosts, the rejection of Ophelia and the emotions, the final confrontation with Laertes and… the rest is silence. Shakespeare himself, playing the ghost, watches Agnes’s response from the wings of the stage, one of the best dramatisations of what catharsis actually means, Agnes, slowly, surprised, coming to terms with all that has happened to her, some kind of purification of her emotions – and a strong reminder that the audience, involved in the play, responding to a tragedy, experiences their own dramatic catharsis.
Hamnet has won a number of awards, best film, and many well-deserved awards for acting for Jessie Buckley.
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