By Anne Brodie
Due to some hiccups I’ve only now managed to see the magnificent Hamnet from Chloé Zhao who also made one of my most beloved films The Rider. This time she swoops down into 16th century Stratford-Upon-Avon, England and and into the lives of an impoverished family, an ambitious husband Will Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley who won the Golden Globe this week for Best Actress in Dama, so richly deserved), who some call a witch, and their three children, Hamnet, his twin sister, Judith, and an older sister, Susanna. Some believe Shakespeare wrote Hamlet as an expression of grief when 11 year old Hamnet died, but there is no scholarly evidence that this is true. Agnes’ pain is unbearable and by now Will is absent, away in London writing and staging plays. Agnes suffers a great deal and fears she’s been abandoned and she’s depressed and in deep mourning. There are a few of Shakespeare’s lines, just enough to recall the connection until the stunning ending, but there is plenty of life, natural beauty, poetry and Buckley’s tremendous performance; her face transmitting without exaggeration, her longing, fear, grieving and love. Some modern colloquial language delivery seems a problem but overall, this intelligent, glorious, tragic, love filled experience fills the heart and intellect.
Interesting facts via Wikipedia:
• Not a Direct Biography: Hamlet isn’t a direct retelling of Shakespeare’s life; it’s a revenge tragedy based on older Scandinavian legends (Amleth).
• No Explicit Confirmation: Shakespeare never stated that Hamlet was inspired by his son, and some scholars point to other influences or suggest the connection is coincidental.
• The Novel Hamnet: Maggie O’Farrell’s popular novel explores this very link, dramatizing the family’s grief and connecting it to the play’s creation, even if the exact timeline in the book isn’t historically precise