Those who were lucky to catch an early screening of Hamnet on the festival circuit were unable to recall the experience without welling up.
Some of our peers have refused a second sitting; others returned for a repeat viewing at a recent Irish press show, just to see if they could hold it together this time. They couldn’t, and I know now why they brought tissues.
Hamnet, a fictional tale rooted in historical tragedy, depicts an unimaginably cruel chapter in the lives of William Shakespeare and his wife Anne (referred to throughout this film as ‘Agnes’).
Based on a novel by Northern Irish author Maggie O’Farrell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zhao, this powerful and perceptive drama begins with a routine countryside romance in the muddy Stratford hills.
It’s there that a handsome Latin tutor (Paul Mescal’s Will) falls head over heels for the most talked-about woman in the village (Jessie Buckley’s Agnes).
Paul Mescal is perfect for the role as William Shakespeare in ‘Hamnet’
They say he’s a terrible worker, lazy and distracted; they tell stories about Agnes, a spirited hawk handler who sleeps under the trees. Our beguiling leads share little in common but are nonetheless perfect for one another.
The inevitable family kick-back ensues. Will’s father, John (David Wilmot), is a bit of a bully; his argumentative mother, Mary (Emily Watson), disapproves of her son’s hippy girlfriend. It’s only after Agnes’s big-hearted brother, Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn), gives his blessing that Agnes and her beloved are allowed to marry.
The kids are on their way. First, a daughter — Susanna — is born in the woods, just as Agnes had planned. Some time later, Mary assists with the birth of twins — Hamnet and Judith — in the Shakespeare home.
With dad away in London making history and the children enjoying a cosy, comfortable life in Stratford with mum, it seems no harm can come to this endearing family portrait. And then the bubonic plague arrives in town.
There has been much talk of Hamnet’s distressing middle section, when Agnes watches the life slip away from her only son.
Buckley, one of the finest actors in the world right now, contorts her body in such a way that suggests she, too, might perish on the spot. The ensuing wail is not a sound I would like to hear twice.
Still, it’s an astonishing sequence, horrifying and heart-wrenching, and it’ll probably be studied for years.
Jessie Buckley’s performance in ‘Hamnet’ may help her win an Oscar
The aftermath is different for everyone. Agnes can barely breathe without thinking of her boy. Will is unable to cope with the idea that his dear Hamnet has simply vanished.
Inevitably, he does what a million other parents have been known to do in such terrible circumstances: he throws himself into his work.
Historians and scholars have often wondered if the young Shakespeare lad’s death directly inspired his father’s most accomplished dramatic piece.
A title card informs us that “Hamlet” and “Hamnet” were the same name around this time – but it’s up to us to decide if the Bard really did conjure up a grandiose theatrical tragedy from his own personal, hellish grief.
Here, that’s exactly what he does, and — this is hardly a spoiler — a heartbroken Agnes eventually reconnects with her estranged husband through the stage.
There is some strong support around them. The increasingly watchable Joe Alwyn delivers a compassionate, dignified turn as Agnes’s dutiful sibling. Watson is marvellous, as ever, and Noah Jupe turns in a commendable performance as the young actor hired to play Will’s ‘Hamlet’.
Mescal, meanwhile, gives us a more measured Shakespeare than we’re used to. Too many films paint the Bard as cocky and untouchable, an annoying man to be around. This is the first to treat him as a human, and Mescal is perfect for the part.
Handsomely shot and beautifully scored, Hamnet is very much a team effort. But it’s Buckley’s big moment, and she’ll probably win an Oscar for it.
In someone else’s hands, Agnes’s emotional odyssey might have spiralled wildly out of control. There is no such issue with Buckley, whose remarkable central turn is so raw — so extraordinarily authentic — you’d forget you’re watching an actor.
It doesn’t get better than that.
Five stars