Hamnet (dir. Chloé Zhao)

By: Adam Freed

There is art, and then there is the type of art that transcends the boundaries of its medium.  There is sculpture, and then there is Venus de Milo.  Hamnet is not a film, so much as it is a spiritual awakening.   Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) has unveiled an immaculate and devastating tragic drama set during the first Elizabethan era in English history.  Against a backdrop that gave juxtaposing rise to both the greatest storyteller of all time and the devastation of the Bubonic plague, Hamnet masterfully summons the emotional competency to balance such a heartwrenching duality.  In this pursuit, Zhao begins her adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 work of historical fiction as a gorgeously conceived love story.  

The innocent love of a young William Shakespeare and his soon-to-be bride Agnes is unmistakably tender in its unsteady meandering.  Agnes is played with jaw-dropping emotional resonance by Irish actress Jessie Buckley (Wicked Little Letters, Women Talking).  The raw chemistry shared between Buckley and Paul Mescal (All of Us Strangers, Aftersun) sets the tone for what will either become the greatest romance, or tragedy of the year.  Agnes, a character very much at home in her wooded surroundings, bears the emotional strength and burden through the growth of their family as William inevitably pursues immortality with his blossoming theater company in London.  It is Agnes who remains with their growing family and faces the day-to-day hardship with the added task of attempting to shield her three children from the grips of plague. 

What separates Chloé Zhao from hastier directors is her willingness to allow audiences to feel time running its course.  Like vines slowly extending their tendrils, Hamnet is given permission to methodically set forth its emotional journey, letting a sense of true love for the couple and the young family to slowly envelop its audience.  What impatient viewers may misconstrue as a methodical film, is one that is being conducted by a master filmmaker, positioning all of her pieces, waiting for the ideal moment to lay emotional siege to her audience.  Anyone remotely familiar with the story of William Shakespeare knows that his is a story pocked by familial tragedy.  But tragedy is not Hamnet’s ultimate reckoning, that comes in the form of the beautiful insight that Zhao explores beyond the horrors of loss and the eventuality of the grief and acceptance that must grow in its wake.  

Underscoring this devastatingly necessary realization is a brilliant score composed by Max Richter (Arrival, Ad Astra).  Richter’s minimalist composition perfectly accents Zhao’s breathtaking visuals until, like a conductor of human emotion, Zhao lets rip an emotive cacophony rendering audiences and characters powerlessly dwarfed by the immensity of grief’s dark shadow. As painful as Hamnet is to experience, it offers sorrow in its most satisfying form, bridging the gap in a solitary moment of redemptive exaltation, nearly impossible to capture in art of any form.  Hamnet is the explosive release of all emotions seemingly at once.  Zhao has created an experience that despite the river of tears cascading down the cheeks of those who witness her triumph, feels therapeutic.  The Chinese director has miraculously discovered a way to meld despair and discernment.  As credits roll and house lights gradually remove the safety of darkness, audiences, with nary a fiber of emotional energy left at their disposal, must find the strength to stand and process what they’ve just experienced.  Chloé Zhao hasn’t just made a film about love, loss and grief, she has provided a roadmap for healing from the terror of all darknesses.  Left in the wake of Hamnet is a resounding understanding that Zhao and the entirety of her production have created something permanent and essential.  

Target Score: 10/10 - The 16th Century story of William Shakespeare and his young bride gradually transitions from a fascinatingly performed period piece into one of the most captivating pieces of heart wrenching filmmaking ever created.  With career-defining performances by Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal,  Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet has safely planted itself at the heart of this year’s conversation for best picture.