Hamnet

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★★★

Rated: M

Directed by: Chloé Zhao

Screenplay by: Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell

Based on the Novel, ‘Hamnet’ written by: Maggie O’Farrell

Produced by: Liza Marshall, p.g.a, Pippa Harris, p.g.a, Nicolas Gonda, p.g.a, Steven Spielberg, p.g.a, Sam Medes, p.g.a,

Starring: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn, Jacobi Jupe, Olivia Lynes, Justine Mitchell, David Wilmot, Louisa Harland, Freya Hanna-Mills, Bodhi Rae Breathnach and Noah Jupe.

‘Keep your heart open.’

Hamnet is a poetic, tragic, beautifully perfect film that reaches inside to lift the heart with the simple beauty of love, family, nature and understanding, to the heart break of loss and the piecing back together again.  I haven’t been moved by a film like this for a very long time.  It took me weeks to process the viewing of Hamnet because like Shakespeare’s plays, the film is relatable.

“All things in life must die, passing through nature to eternity.”

“To be or not to be, that is the question.”

“The rest is silence.”

It’s 1580 England.

Looking up at the tall trees in a forest, a choral of voices sound as the scene finds a woman curled in the roots of a tree sleeping.

The film focusses on the silence, the wind in the trees, a bird chirping.

It’s an emersion into the world of Alice (Jessie Buckley).

Alice holds her glove out to a hawk that lands to feed, her pet, her companion.

Children speak, recite Latin in a classroom.

The teacher, William (Paul Mescal) sees Alice walk past the window.  He seeks her out.

‘Good day, sir.’

He can’t stop looking at her, finds it difficult to speak.

‘Speaking to people is sometimes difficult for me.’

‘Then tell me a story.’

It’s rumoured that Alice is the daughter of a forest witch.

She can see into someone’s future by pressing her thumb to another’s hand.

She tells William, ‘I’m Alice.’

He accepts her for who she is.

Based on the book by Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet is the story of William Shakespeare’s personal life, his family, and the personal tragedy that inspired his famous play, Hamlet.

It’s explained at the beginning of the film, ‘Hamnet and Hamlet are in fact the same name, Interchangeable in Stratford records in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries

– The Death of Hamnet and the Making of Hamlet

Director, screenplay writer and editor, Chloé Zhao (Nomadland (2020)) states:

“You want the audience to see themselves in these characters,” Zhao says. “I want to try to open the hearts of the audience, soften them so they can feel the emotions these characters are feeling. Once they catch the wave with us, with our characters, then they have a chance to also experience catharsis. That’s always the creative goal of my films. Once they go through that catharsis, then they, like these characters, find some meaning from these difficult life situations, and hopefully become more whole through the experience of viewing the film.”

The performances of Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal are breathtaking.

I could feel Alice’s joy, her love of nature, her mother, her husband, her children.

The rhythm of her emotion is like the echo of William reciting his lines.

The film is so subtly put together that the emotion creeps up then overtakes as the story is threaded together by images that come back, like Alice’s sight of the future, the audience is given insight into the full circle of Wiliam’s play, Hamlet.  And like the thread of red berries taped to the branches of a tree, the film is an echo of the afterlife and the tragedy of a stage play.

‘I’ll be brave.’

I loved the character Alice, ‘running off to the forest like a gypsy.’

And the joy of her children, her understanding of William not wanting to lose him, understanding that he needed more than the countryside.

And the way William looked at Alice.  How he couldn’t explain, couldn’t talk, could only express through the words of a story, like when they first met, ‘I find it difficult to talk with people.’

‘Then tell me a story.’

I cannot recommend this film enough.

But bring your tissues people.  This one is a wonderful heartbreaker.