Jessie Buckley delivers a sensational performance in this award-winning drama based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, itself a fictionalised imagining of Shakespeare’s home life.
We meet William (Paul Mescal) when he’s working as a tutor, instantly falling for the wild, free-spirited Agnes (Buckley). Despite the misgivings of his family, including his mother (Emily Watson), they marry and begin their own family. Agnes feels deeply connected to the earth and the forest, and takes herself off to the woods to give birth to their first-born child, Susanna.
Twin children follow: Judith and Hamnet, a name that was interchangeable with the name Hamlet in Elizabethan England. While Shakespeare is pursuing his dreams in London and Stratford, the 11-year-old twins fall ill, with fatal consequences. The ensuing tragedy breaks William’s heart and inspires him to pen the play Hamlet.
Director Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) stays close to Agnes, following her gut-wrenching grief so vividly that the film feels utterly enveloping emotionally. Buckley’s raw, real performance is extraordinary, willing the audience to feel her pain. It’s an intense experience, and while it might sound daunting, it’s ultimately rewarding, paying tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and inviting great compassion.
It’s also beautifully shot, from the couple’s sunny garden to the powerful closing scene at the Globe Theatre in London, where Shakespeare finally shows the play he has been working on to a rapt audience.
Like the novel it’s based on, Hamnet takes a refreshingly unusual angle on a famous historical character whose wife has typically been relegated to the footnotes. By putting Agnes and her children centre stage, director Zhao is making a strong statement about the stories we tell, and how we respond to them. And rather than contradicting beloved films such as Shakespeare in Love, it feels like a fascinating companion piece from a different perspective.
[Hero image credit: Focus Features]
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