HAMNET
(director/writer: Chloe Zhao; screenwriter: Maggie O’Farrell, novel by Maggie O’Farrell; cinematographer: Lukas Zal; editors: Chloe Zhao/Affonso Goncalves; music: Max Richter; cast: Jessie Buckley (Agnes Shakespeare), Paul Mescal (Will Shakespeare), Joe Alwyn (Bartholomew, Agnes’s brother), Emily Watson (Mary, Will’s mother), David Wilmot (John), Bodhi Rae Breathnach (Susanna, daughter), Olivia Lynes (Judith, 11-year-old daughter), Jacobi Jupe (Hamnet, 11-year-old son), Sam Wolff (Bernardo); Runtime: 125; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Liza Marshall, Pippa Harris, Nicolas Gonda, Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes; Focus Features/Hera Pictures; 2025-UK)
“Humanizes the Bard.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
China-born indie filmmaker Chloe Zhao (“The Rider”/ “Nomadland”) marvelously adapts to the screen in a meditative manner the bestselling 2020 novel Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell and co-writes it in an effectively sparse manner with the author (in 2023 it was adapted as a stage play).
It tells the married life story of the 16th century Elizabethan bard Will Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) in a fictionalized way through the eyes of his perceptive healer wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley). The couple raised three children, the eldest Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) and the 11-year-old twins Judith (Olivia Lynes) and the only son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe).
Hamnet opens by telling us the names Hamlet and Hamnet were interchangeable in the court records of Stratford, the residence of Shakespeare.
When they first meet, Will is a Latin tutor paying off his abusive father’s debts and Agnes is a free-spirit healer, in tune with nature, first shown healing a hawk in the woods.
It has a deeply affecting highlight scene of Hamnet’s death during the bubonic plague. Agnes is deeply affected by the loss of her son, while Will dedicates himself to writing Hamlet as a way to honor his son and express his grief. The play, destined to become arguably the greatest one ever, opens in the Globe Theater.
Even the most hardened viewer might be crying over the grieving Shakespeare’s heartbreaking loss of their son.
The performances by Buckley and Mescal are mesmerizing (with Buckley super good and carrying the film), the visuals by Lukas Zal are stunning, and the arty style of directing by Zhao is masterful. It humanizes the Bard, and in my opinion is one of cinema’s more emotionally moving biopics even if its story may not be completely true.
It played at the Telluride Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 9/29/2025 GRADE: A
dennisschwartzreviews.com