Chloe Zhao does it again! Another Oscar frontrunner and contender with Hamnet. I haven’t read the original novel at the time of watching the film and typing out this review – perhaps someday I should. But the story regarding the creation of Hamlet is very well-researched at this point, including the academic speculation on the influence of William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet himself on the play. It alone makes for pretty ripe material for a dramatization especially for one of the most significant English plays written by a very significant playwright whose name needs no introduction at this point.
We get a nice opening scene where a falcon lands on the arm of Agnes Shakespeare – or Anne Hathaway as we know her. It reminded me of some of the scenes in one of Zhao’s previous films The Rider, with Brady training the horses – animals can be unpredictable at times, and I would imagine those particular scenes are very hard to stage. It comes across as very naturalistic especially with the green forest environment and setting that Hamnet takes place in.
Later Agnes meets none other than William Shakespeare himself. They fall in love and have children, their coming together and eventual marriage is much to the dismay of each of their respective families. Agnes has the reputation and label of being a “forest witch”, and eventually a young William leaves his dad and family in an act of frustration after suffering many years of abuse under him. William has dreams of being a playwright and has to frequently travel to London, leaving Agnes to care for the family and the children. Eventually their separation takes a toll once one of the twins, Judith, starts to get sick. During one scene, her twin brother Hamnet joins her lying down on the bed, and through what appears to be a spiritual intervention or a miracle of some sort, Judith is fully healed at the cost of Hamnet’s health. Hamnet never recovers and he eventually dies, leading to a very emotionally painful scene and breakdown from Agnes performed by Jessie Buckley herself. Buckley gives a spectacular performance here, and I would not be shocked to see her potentially walk away with an Oscar.
This creates further separation between Agnes and William as William retreats further into his work. Of course this creates further drama, yet all is reconciled in a big way once Agnes is invited to see the premiere of William’s play that he had been working on all along – Hamlet, itself a tragedy about the loss of a son which also serves as a dedication to their real son. That ending moment is very powerful – we understand Agnes’ flood of emotions as we see the actor playing Hamlet himself in the flesh. Almost like a resurrection of Hamnet, now all grown up, plus the poetic inclusion of having William himself play the spirit of his father is very touching. Like life imitating art, or the ways in which life can be interchangeable with art itself.