Hamnet
Starring Jesse Buckley, Paul Mescal,
and Zac Wishart
Directed by: Chloe Zhao
Streaming on Peacock

First Impression: Director Chloé Zhao brings a devastatingly somber and somehow beautiful telling of William Shakespeare’s early life, his relationship with his wife and his children, and how he got the inspiration to write his timeless classics that are still taught in schools today. This was probably one of the most emotional movies I’ve seen this year. The journey director Chloé Zhao takes us on through the experience of grief and pain is something extraordinary. Actress Jessie Buckley gives a memorable performance that recently won her the Best Actress Award and after watching this film—it was well deserved.

When I think about the collective works of William Shakespeare, I go back to my high school and college classes where the plays—whether they be tragedy or comedy—would be analyzed and performed in the 500-year-old speaking style that would take me out of the story and wonder how much longer we had to go before class was over. It’s not that I didn’t have an appreciation for Shakespeare or his works, but I just wasn’t really a theater person and didn’t really have the excitement and vigor to read and perform his plays. What I was more interested in was: how did he write these plays? Where did he get these ideas and what was his inspiration? Who was Shakespeare really? What was he like? Who were those close to him?

Well, luckily for me, we have the film Hamnet, which at the beginning of the film shows that it is interchangeable with the name of perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous play—and perhaps the most famous and important play in the history of the English language—Hamlet, which was the name of Shakespeare’s only son. Zhao shows us how Shakespeare met his future wife, Agnes, who was considered by the townspeople to be a witch who came from a line of witches. I think the people were mistaken. Agnes is shown as a loving, supportive free spirit who told her children to always pay attention to their dreams, and how to work with herbs and what came from the earth and how they can protect you from disease. Seems more like a curandera to me.

Well, we see Shakespeare’s family forbid him from marrying that “evil girl,” and were telling him, “we would be the laughingstock of the community” and “how could we accept her into our family?” This all happened after she told his family she was pregnant with their first child. This sounded oddly familiar to Romeo and Juliet with the star-crossed lovers theme. We also see how Shakespeare had a very difficult relationship with his father and didn’t want his son, Hamnet, to be close to him because he believed that he would treat him just as bad because he was his son—echoing the themes of Hamlet and Macbeth as well.

Hamnet is a film that isn’t loud. It doesn’t have many special effects, if any. It’s a story that focuses on its famous characters and how they influenced and helped each other through such trying times. Hamnet is definitely one of the best films of the year. You should watch it whether you are a Shakespeare fan or not.

Final Verdict 4 ½ out of 5 stars