Christine Jardine reviews 'Hamnet' – a film which lives up to its hype
‘Understated brilliance’: Jessie Buckley as Agnes Hathaway | Image by: BFA / Agata Grzybowska / Focus Features
3 min read
Moving and profound, Chloé Zhao’s beautifully shot movie is more than worthy of its eight Oscar nominations
I am always wary that films based on books I have enjoyed may prove to be a disappointment. I need not have worried with Hamnet.
Telling the story of William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes’ struggle to cope with the tragic loss of their son Hamnet, the film version more than lives up to its pre-release expectations.
Part of my apprehension going into the cinema was because I not only loved the book but also its author; Maggie O’Farrell is one of my favourites.
The decision to involve her in the adaptation and development of the story was a canny one.
I emerged from the cinema knowing I had seen something memorable. If anything, the film went further than O’Farrell’s book had in offering a deeper, fresher understanding of how that grief influenced Shakespeare’s writing of his play, Hamlet. Now I want to see that play again to enjoy it through the new appreciation I feel the film has offered.
Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet and Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare
Image by: Ent-movie / Alamy
The performances are without exception excellent – in particular Jessie Buckley as Agnes, who gives a performance of understated brilliance.
It would have been easy to make the unconventional character simply quirky or difficult. But I found Buckley’s portrayal touching and sympathetic. I felt I knew and understood who Agnes was and what she felt.
It is more than worthy of its Golden Globe recognition and Oscar speculation.
I emerged from the cinema knowing I had seen something memorable
I hadn’t seen enough of Paul Mescal’s work before this but I suspect now I will regard his casting in anything as a recommendation to watch it. Anyone who has faced a similar trauma will recognise their own despair and confusion in Mescal’s portrayal of Shakespeare.
It was the first time I have been encouraged to see the playwright as anything other than the bland-looking moustachioed chap in the ubiquitous drawing. Mescal made him magnetic, ambitious and driven, but with a resultant hint of selfishness that proves so personally costly.
But it is the final scene, new for the film, in which the unspoken interaction between he and Buckley reaches its most profound and heartbreaking climax.
The film is beautifully shot throughout and presented in a way that makes it feel almost like a theatre production with its progression through scenes and acts to its climax.
There will no doubt be sceptics who claim that it’s using the death of Hamnet to reinvent or create a fictitious view of Shakespeare. Or that it’s just another clever story. If it is, then it is one with great emotional depth in portraying a very real human and familial trauma.
But for me it achieved that which is central to all great storytelling: it raised questions and provoked debate – in this case about one of the great literary figures; possibly the greatest.
Have we all for centuries been playing out in theatres, schools and cinemas across the world a much more personal and heartbreaking story than we realised? Having watched this film, I do really need to experience Hamlet again.
Christine Jardine is Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West
Hamnet
Directed by: Chloé Zhao
Venue: General cinema release
