Hamnet (2025)
After winning the Best Director Oscar for Nomadland (which also won Best Picture), Chloe Zhao tried her hand at blockbuster fare with Eternals, which failed to get off the ground as a franchise. That may have been a good thing, because Zhao is now back to making character-driven fare for adults with Hamnet.
Agnes (Jessie Buckley) is a young woman who spends most of the time in her local forest. One day, she meets a young William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), who at the time is not a famous writer but a young man struggling with an abusive father and trying to find his way in the world. The two fall in love. They have three children (two are twins), but Shakespeare's success with his plays means he spends a lot of time in London away from his family in Stratford-upon-Avon. Tragedy strikes one of the children, leaving the two parents to struggle with their grief and Shakespeare's prolonged separations. Shakespeare then writes Hamlet as a tribute to his late son.
The movie is lovely to look at, but it is a little slow in the
early going. However, it features moments of great emotional power. The
extended sequence where the Shakespeare's son falls ill and dies is absolutely
gut-wrenching. The lengthy finale, where Agnes and her brother Bartholomew (Joe
Alwyn) travel to London to watch Hamlet, is also powerful. It's touching
for the catharsis the couple experiences, but it also serves as a moving
tribute to the power of experiencing art in a communal setting. In a world
where Netflix is tentatively scheduled to merge with Warner Bros, placing movie
theaters in more peril than they already are, that is an important message for
audiences. Art, and all the emotions that come with it, is best experienced
with other human beings and not just on one's couch.
