With Shakespeare’s plays, you usually know what you’re going to get: comedy, tragedy, or history. Hamnet—director Chloe Zhao’s adaptation of the Maggie O’Farrell novel, which imagined the Bard’s early family life in 16th-century England—lures us in with a swooning romance, then lowers the hammer. We first meet Agnes (Jessie Buckley) as a young woman living on a farm, where she ditches her chores whenever she can to sneak off and gather herbs in the woods. Will (Paul Mescal) arrives to tutor her younger stepbrothers and is immediately smitten. Following her into the forest—where his blueish shirt and her red dress flirt against emerald greens—he tells her the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, eliciting a world-melting smile. These early scenes have the rapturous heedlessness of a teen romance (or the Best Picture-winning Shakespeare in Love), yet trouble lies ahead: Will’s eventual popularity as a playwright brings financial stability but also relational stress, while raising three children during the bubonic plague proves to be an experience of acute love and terror. As the movie proceeds, the Shakespeare references become more explicit, ultimately climaxing in a production of Hamlet at the Globe Theatre that ends on a communal note of profound compassion. Some might balk at the literary Easter eggs, but thanks to the fierceness of the lead performances and Zhao’s equal commitment behind the camera, I always experienced this as human story first and Shakespeare fanfic second.
(12/9/2025)
