Hamnet

Most of us think of William Shakespeare as a monument—a bust of cold marble or a terrifyingly thick textbook that ruined our sophomore year of high school. But in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, the Bard is essentially a peripheral character in his own life story. Based on the Maggie O’Farrell novel that everyone’s mom was reading a few years back, the film shifts the camera away from the London stage and points it squarely at the muddy, sun-dappled domesticity of Stratford.

I watched this at a Tuesday matinee, flanked by two elderly women who shared a bag of lemon drops so loudly it sounded like a construction site, yet the film still managed to pull me under. It’s a strange, quiet beast of a movie that feels like the cinematic equivalent of a weighted blanket that slowly starts to choke you. In an era of cinema often dominated by "The Volume" and slick, airless CGI environments, Chloé Zhao (who gave us the hauntingly beautiful Nomadland) insists on the tactile. You can practically smell the dried rosemary and the damp wool.

The Agnes Supremacy

While the marketing might lead you to believe this is a Paul Mescal vehicle, make no mistake: this belongs entirely to Jessie Buckley. Playing Agnes (the woman history usually remembers as Anne Hathaway), Buckley delivers the kind of performance that makes you realize just how much other actors are "acting." She’s a healer, a forest-dweller, and a mother who seems to see five seconds into the future but can’t stop the tragedy headed for her front door.

Buckley, who was so unsettlingly good in Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, brings a wild, earthy energy here. She isn't a "period piece heroine" in the traditional sense; she feels like someone who actually exists in 1580, not a modern actress playing dress-up. Opposite her, Paul Mescal (our current king of the sensitive-soul-stare, seen recently in Aftersun) plays Will. He’s the "Latin tutor," the dreamer, and eventually the absentee father. Their chemistry is effortless, grounded in a sort of desperate, youthful hunger that slowly erodes into the weary silence of long-term grief.

A Different Kind of Period Piece

There is a specific kind of "prestige drama" fatigue that sets in when you see a 16th-century setting, but Zhao avoids the usual traps. Working with cinematographer Łukasz Żal—the eye behind the stark beauty of Cold War and The Zone of Interest—the film looks more like a Dutch painting than a Hollywood set. They use natural light with a religious devotion, capturing the way a plague-stricken house feels both holy and horrific.

The plot, if you can call it that, centers on the death of young Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) and the ripple effect it has on his twin sister Judith and their parents. It’s an exploration of how we process the unthinkable. The film suggests that Hamlet, perhaps the most famous piece of literature in the English language, wasn't just a stroke of genius—it was a frantic, spectral attempt by a father to bring his son back to life.

Interestingly, the production leaned into the reality of the characters by casting actual brothers, Jacobi Jupe and Noah Jupe (from A Quiet Place), to play Hamnet and the older Hamlet. It’s a meta-textual touch that adds a layer of genuine familial resemblance you usually don't get in these kinds of historical tapestries. Emily Watson also shows up as Will’s mother, Mary, reminding us all why she’s been a titan of the genre since Breaking the Waves.

Why It Matters Now

In 2025, we are constantly bombarded by "content" designed to be consumed while scrolling through our phones. Hamnet demands the opposite. It is a slow, rhythmic experience that treats silence as a dialogue choice. In a post-pandemic landscape, the film’s depiction of a sudden, invisible illness tearing through a household feels uncomfortably relevant. It captures that specific anxiety of watching a loved one’s fever rise, a feeling that hasn't changed in five hundred years.

There’s a bit of a hot take to be had here: Shakespeare is basically a deadbeat dad with a poetry habit, and the film doesn't really let him off the hook. We see the cost of his "greatness"—the empty chairs and the lonely wife left to manage the trauma while he’s off becoming a legend in London. It’s a refreshing perspective that prioritizes the people left in the margins of history.

If you’re looking for a fast-paced romp through Elizabethan England, this isn't it. But if you want a film that understands the weight of a name and the way grief can be transmuted into art, it’s a stunning achievement. It’s the kind of movie that stays with you long after the credits roll, making you look at your own family—and your own legacy—with a bit more tenderness.

Ultimately, Hamnet succeeds because it refuses to be a dry biography. It’s a ghost story where the ghost is still alive, haunting the halls of a life he walked away from. Chloé Zhao has crafted something that feels both ancient and immediate, anchored by Jessie Buckley’s career-best work. It’s a heavy sit, but one that earns every tear it coaxes out of you by the final act.