With so many adaptations from films, television and other media of the many plays he wrote and are still being performed to this day, William Shakespeare might as well be his own franchise, attracting an audience that is as diverse as his own work. There are also a handful of films that dramatize the man himself, from Oscar-winners like Shakespeare in Love to small British dramas like All is True. In the case of Chloé Zhao’s latest outing, Hamnet, Shakespeare himself is one half of a central romance.
Based on the 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell who co-wrote the film alongside Zhao, we are introduced to Will (Paul Mescal) as a tutor who leaves his students after seeing Agnes (Jesse Buckley) who summons a hawk with her falconry glove. Decried by Will’s family who see her as the daughter of a forest witch as she does spend much of her time in the forest, he doesn’t care and thus a relationship blooms between the two.
Considering the star-crossed nature of their romance where there is a touch of Romeo and Juliet, this is the first of numerous occasions where the lives between the two lovers, for all their ups and downs, would become inspirations for Shakespearean fiction. Since Hamnet is categorized as historical fiction, as the narrative shifts from being a love story between two outsiders to a family tragedy about the loss of innocence, the film makes the speculation that the tragic passing of Will and Agnes’ son Hamnet led to the creation of the play Hamlet.
While you see the film’s own origin of the play’s “to be, or not to be” speech, the film doesn’t feel like it is crowbarring these theatrical references. As much as the film showcases Shakespeare himself as a struggling artist defying his father’s orders to then a loving if distant family man who never witnessed his son’s death at firsthand – all of which Paul Mescal nails brilliantly, it is really Jesse Buckley’s film.
Positioning Agnes as the lead feels more refreshing than just Shakespeare the focus and with playing Buckley playing up the raw emotion, especially during the film’s most heartbreaking sequence, it is not steeped in sentimentality as the grieving process is represented through Buckley’s quietness that does so much.
While she tried to push boundaries with what you can do with the superhero genre with Eternals, which had mixed results, Zhao’s return to arthouse cinema feels right, even if her approach to visual storytelling, which is more akin to Terrence Malick, will be not everyone’s taste. There are sections here where the vibes are slow and meditative, and with a great emphasis on forest interactions, we were dangerously close to the tree stroking from Malick’s The New World.
Fortunately, for as much dirt and grime the 1500s look (beautifully shot by cinematographer Łukasz Żal), Zhao never loses sight of a story where art becomes a form of therapy, even for those who have zero interest in the arts, as evident when we are introduced to The Tragedy of Hamlet on stage.
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