Hamnet

By Joanna Langfield

This literary origins story takes its time getting there, but its remarkable ending takes us to a place that is gloriously cathartic.

Chloe Zhao, who knows how to tell an evocative tale, directed and co-wrote this re-telling of the relationship between William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes. What begins as a somewhat traditional love story starts to change when he, with Agnes’s encouragement, leaves to begin the Globe Theater. Giving birth to their children alone, Agnes finds herself a reluctant, essentially single mother. But it’s when their son, the 11 year old Hamnet dies, the tragedy takes a most devastating toll.

This part of the terribly sad story, as detailed in co-writer Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, is not an easy watch. For some, too, the graphic birthing scenes might prove a challenge. I found Jessie Buckley’s performance far more effective in the quieter moments, when she is not asked to scream, but to marvel in the smaller and not so small miracles of life. What she tells us without saying a word is transcendent. Co-stars Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn, Noah Jupe and Jacobi Jupe all make the most of their moments to shine.

As intellectually interesting as the beginnings of this film are, for me, the true emotion of it didn’t kick in until Agnes and her brother set off for The Globe, to confront the emotionally and physically distant Will. What they find is not just unexpected, but, through the theatrical debut of his new play, Hamlet, revelatory and astonishing. So yes, while this is a most personal story of grief, it is also, and I think more successfully, a universal story of art, how it is created and how it can heal us all.