Buckley is the engine powering this emotionally condensed drama
Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling book Hamnet was a literary sensation, and quickly sparked rumors of an inevitable movie adaptation. When Oscar winner Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) was announced as Hamnet’s director, followed by the casting of Oscar nominees Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun) in the starring roles, expectations shot through the roof. Now that Zhao’s Hamnet is finally arriving in theaters, does it live up to the hype? The answer is a soft ‘yes.’ Through a tremendously powerful performance from Buckley and a deeply emotional script, Hamnet reproduces the story’s inherent drama even as it strips away any narrative complexities.
Hamnet takes place in Stratford, England in the late 1500s and follows the story of Agnes (Buckley) and a Latin tutor (Mescal) falling in love and having three children: Susanna, followed by twins Judith and Hamnet. The Latin tutor (I’m going to start referring to him as Shakespeare because we should all be aware of who he’s supposed to be – he goes unnamed in the book, and is named once in the movie) starts a job as a playwright in London, leaving Agnes to care for the children. At age eleven, Judith falls ill, and in a heartbreaking moment, her twin brother Hamnet disguises himself as her and lies beside her to confuse death. Hamnet gets suddenly ill and dies. Wrecked with grief, Agnes struggles to overcome her loss, and her relationship with the absent Shakespeare begins falling apart, especially as the latter seems unable to meet Agnes at her level of despair. Having learned that Shakespeare wrote a new play called Hamlet, Agnes goes to London to see the play. While O’Farrell’s book is a work of speculative fiction, Shakespeare did have twins, and the male twin, Hamnet, did die at age eleven. It is also rumored, though there is no evidence, that Hamlet was inspired by the death of Hamnet.
The one theme that Zhao extracts from the novel and doubles down on is the idea of confronting grief through art. Zhao explores this idea through technical and artistic ways. While the spiritual, psychic Agnes finds solace through her connection to the natural world, Shakespeare channels his grief through his writing (and drinking). Zhao chooses to hold the camera on the actors’ faces, allowing us to watch them progress through a series of emotions. Scenes don’t drag; rather, they linger and hold the intensity. Zhao is showcasing the art of acting and the catharsis it can elicit. Luckily for Zhao, Buckley and Mescal are terrific conduits for this message. Buckley, especially, is a force of nature as Agnes and dominates the film with numerous raw, tortured, and contorting scene work. Hamnet’s extended scenes of birth and death consume and capture us, while the final sequence of a performance of Hamlet at the Globe theatre is a tremendous accomplishment in art direction, editing, and acting that will both break your heart and lift your spirits.
The simplicity of Zhao’s Hamnet allows for emotional immersion without plot distractions. Shakespeare’s life in London is shown only once, briefly, thereby establishing his character as a reclusive, tortured artist and a mostly absent father while keeping the story focus on Agnes and her children. The cinematography, music, and costumes are wonderful, as are the supporting performers, especially Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet. A few moments of surrealism pepper the story, giving Zhao a narrow space of screentime to visualize Agnes’ supernatural intuition. Otherwise, Hamnet hones in on the gut-wrenching drama, and invites the viewer to feel its impact. If it wasn’t for Buckley’s tour de force performance, maybe I’d be singing a different tune, but Zhao’s intentions and choice to showcase Buckley perfectly align to deliver Hamnet’s most crucial element – the power of loss and loss’s ability to inspire.
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Hamnet opens in select theaters on Wednesday, Nov. 26th, and widely on Friday, Dec. 5th.
