Hamnet | Dir: Chloé Zhao | ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
Hamnet is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s book Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague which was published in 2020, the year of the COVID pandemic. The film is set in late 16th century England when William Shakespeare’s young son Hamnet died from the bubonic plague.
The name Hamnet was interchangeable with Hamlet in Elizabethan England and it is widely believed that Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet, written three years after his son’s death, was a result of the family grief over the tragedy.
Although the play Hamlet explores a son’s need to avenge his father’s death, the film Hamnet centres on the burden of grief and its devastating effect on the family. William (Paul Mescal) recites the powerful ‘to be or not to be’ speech on the bank of the Thames as he contemplates the pain of living against the uncertainty of an unknown afterlife.
Of course, the connection between the death of Hamnet and the creation of Hamlet is purely scholarly theory, and much of this deeply emotional film about love and loss is conjecture by O’Farrell and writer/director Chloé Zhao.
Shakespeare’s wife Anne (Agnes) Hathaway (Jesse Buckley) has been fleshed out with imaginings to be a healer, connected to the surrounding forest by her heritage of wise women, otherwise known as witches. Thanks to Jesse Buckley’s enthralling, award-winning performance, the film is more about her.
The rawly powerful love story also brings new meanings to some of the bard’s famous writings. It was an absolute delight to hear the soliloquies ‘in situ’, though it may have been somewhat daunting to those not familiar with Shakespeare’s works.
Hamnet shows how art can connect people with the high calibre acting, and the cinematography bringing ancient forests to life and walking the audience through authentic Tudor England, as well as capturing the meaning behind a crooked smile and loving glance.
Luna Leederville, Windsor Cinema and Luna on SX have early screenings on Saturday 10 January and Sunday 12 January, before official release of Hamnet on 15 January.
Lezly Herbert
