I haven’t read Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel upon which this film is based neither have I seen the West End production so I actually had very little idea what this film was about. The film has received excellent reviews and just last night Hamnet won Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture, Drama and Jessie Buckley won for Best Actress for her role as Agnes.

Is a film about Shakespeare going to appeal to audiences in 2026? The answer seems to be a resounding yes. Instead of focusing on the Bard’s work the book/film focusses on his family life, particularly his feisty free-spirited wife Agnes and his little boy, Hamnet. At the beginning of the film there is a note to say that in the 16th century the names Hamlet and Hamnet were interchangeable. Hamnet is one of a set of fraternal twins, Judith his twin sister is a fragile child who almost died at birth. They have an older sister, Susanna. Agnes, like her mother before her, has the reputation of being something of a witch and she has some precognitive ability. Agnes has a vision of there being two children at her deathbed and convinces herself that Judith will die before she does.

Agnes and Shakespeare meet when he is engaged as a Latin tutor for her brothers, a role he has been obliged to take on to pay off his violent father’s debts. He sees Agnes, resplendent in her red dress with a hawk on her arm and makes a pass at her not realising that she is the daughter of his employer. He woos her with the tale of lovers Orpheus and Eurydyce and she appears to have a vision of his future . The director Chloe Zhao makes great use of the lush forest location and it is here that Agnes belongs while Shakespeare feels constrained and wishes to go to London and pursue his dream of becoming a playwright. The separation is problematic and it soon becomes clear that Agnes has no intention of ever living in the city.

Jessie Buckley is really the star of Hamnet with her powerhouse performance. She plays Agnes with a fierce strength at the heart of which is a fear of losing one of her children. Paul Mescal is a wonderful Shakespeare who deeply loves his family. Chloe Zhao really gets to the crux of what makes each character tick and I especially liked Emily Watsons performance as Shakespeare’s mother, Mary. I am not going to give anything away about the plot other than to say that Hamnet is devastatingly sad film. Mary tells us how she has lost three children, one aged seven and two as babies. In a time when infant mortality was so high, women, especially, learned to live with the burden of grief.

I don’t like it when I feel that books or films are trying to manipulate me into feeling something and unfortunately I did feel this about Hamnet. I think a little more subtlety would have worked, we didn’t need to be hit over the head with the character’s emotions, the subject matter was sad enough. I almost felt that I had failed the assignment by not crying by the end.

My favourite scene was set in the Globe Theatre. Like the scenes set in the streets of Stratford you really feel that you have been transported back in time. You would require a heart of stone not to be moved when Agnes first sees the play that her husband has written about the darkest time in their lives. A time when he was absent from the family because of his work commitments. I did enjoy Hamnet, it is a visually beautiful film told through a mix of fact and imagination.

.Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Myke Simon on Unsplash