What would it have been like to stand among the first audiences of Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet<\/a>? Rough-clothed shoulder to rough-clothed shoulder, muscles swollen from a hard day\u2019s work, a stink of garlic and beer in the air \u2013 yet, from on stage, those words of madness, of the futility in grief, quietly tethering heart to heart, stranger to stranger? At least five major outbreaks of the bubonic plague struck London within Shakespeare\u2019s lifetime. It\u2019s hard to imagine who in his audiences would not have been touched by some untimely loss of life.<\/p>\n Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s Hamnet, adapted from Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s largely speculative novel about the play\u2019s conception, builds to an immaculate depiction of one of its first performances. We see only a handful of its scenes performed<\/a>. Still, you feel the full force of its impact, like an enormous, shuddering release of long-held breath.<\/p>\n What we know is that Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway, lost their only son Hamnet to unknown causes in 1596. Names, at the time, were more fluid. Anne was often recorded as Agnes. Hamnet was often written as Hamlet. O\u2019Farrell\u2019s book, and in turn Zhao\u2019s film, which she co-wrote with the author, view Hamlet then as an act of collective catharsis. Shakespeare is played by Paul Mescal, Agnes by Jessie Buckley, Hamnet by Jacobi Jupe, and Hamlet (pointedly) by his older brother, Noah Jupe.<\/p>\n
![\"Jessie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4238_D045_00238_R.jpeg\")
Jessie Buckley in \u2018Hamnet\u2019 (Focus Features)<\/p>\n