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Hamnet is a great work of empathy and the best film Chloé Zhao has made by quite a wide margin. Adapted from the 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell, who returns here as co-writer, the film serves as a lovely reminder of why art is important, how watching something can make you feel, make you understand, make you consider.
The film’s plot is simple: young Agnes (Jessie Buckley) marries her village’s master tutor William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and they have three children––an eldest girl named Eliza (Freya Hannan-Mills) and younger twins Judith (Olivia Lynes) and Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe). Judith barely survived birth, and Agnes fears she will lose her second daughter at any moment. Agnes, losing her own mother at a young age, found solace in nature amongst her bees and her bird. Claiming an ability to see what’s going to happen, she is thought of by many villagers to be a witch of sorts. William journeys to London to pursue creative ambitions at the urging of his wife and the assistance of her brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn). His extended absence becomes, of course, hard to bear, until a great tragedy pushes Agnes and William further apart and tests their meddle. In his grief, Williams writes Hamlet, one of the great works of art.
This is an achingly beautiful film, one composer Max Richter underlines with a score that will live on on its own. Cinematographer Łukasz Żal is patient with his camera; Zhao is patient with her pace. The fluidity of movement allows for every emotion to sneak up on you. It’s like a magic trick, hinted at in The Rider and Nomadland but perfected here. Buckley and Mescal share moments of intimacy that are so real it’s often breathtaking. The same can be said of the children––Hannan-Mills, Lynes, and Jupe possess a naturalness that is so rare in young actors. A particular scene of playacting for their parents is something I’ll remember for quite some time.
The third act is where Hamnet transcends into something special: inside the Globe Theater, we watch life and art collide on Agnes’ face. It’s the kind of performance that is hard to write about because it does not make sense that a person can do it. Buckley’s eyes: confused, then angry, then ebullient. With little dialogue, it all plays out on her face. Her revelations become our own. To be transported somewhere in a story can sometimes be the cure to your deepest ailments.
We tell stories so that we can survive. To understand our sadness and our ecstasy. We live in a country that relents against subsidizing the arts. There is a persistent, unfortunate idea that books, movies, and music are a luxury. A hobby. A thing to do when you have the time to do it. It is so much more than that. It is necessary. It’s like breathing. Hamnet reminds us of that.
Hamnet premiered at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival and will enter a limited release on November 27.
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