In Chloe Zhao’s glorious Hamnet, based on the Maggie O’Farrell novel, a couple must deal with the death of a child. That couple is none other than William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley).
Will is an aspiring writer with ambitions too big for their provinical hometown of Stratford. Agnes is just the kind of woman that we imagine would attract Shakespeare – smart, spirited, earthy and a determined non-conformist. The two fall in love and start a family, settling into an affectionate relationship and comfortable parenting partnership.
As someone who runs a London theater company, Will is necessarily away on business in London much of the time. To Agnes, who stays raising the kids in Stratford, where there is no theater, Will’s world is only theoretical. Although, he sends money for the family and even buys the biggest house in town, she just has no way of comprehending what he really does in London.
No European family in the late 1500s could hope to avoid pestilence, and tragedy strikes the Shakespeares – unfortunately while Will is away from home.
People do not experience grief the same way nor on the same timeline. Heartbroken parents may not feel like they are sharing the suffering together. Often, marriages do not survive the death of a child.
Hamnet is framed in a very 21st Century perspective – about using one’s art to process grief and express one’s feelings. In Hamnet, Will works out his grief by penning Hamlet, and Agnes can only align her grief with Will’s by experiencing his play.
Jessie Buckley’s performance as Agnes is wondrous. She perfectly captures Agnes’ freethinking independence, lusty passion and nurturing motherhood. When Agnes suffers her loss, Buckley shows her in the deepest despair and in her profound resentment of Will. Her personal catharsis makes for the most emotionally powerful movie ending of the year.
From her movie debut in the disturbing Beast, followed by acclaimed performances in Wild Rose and The Lost Daughter, Buckley has demonstrated that she is unsurpassed as a screen actor. Her work in Hamnet is a tour de force, and she will be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.
This is Jessie Buckley’s movie, but Paul Mescal is very good as William Shakespeare, even if he doesn’t have as much to do in the first two acts. Mescal blossoms in the third act as Shakespeare writes, directs and then acts in Hamlet. In particular, Mescal’s Shakespeare recites the To Be. Or not to be. speech as he contemplates taking his life, and it’s never been so raw and powerful. And I have never see the King’s Ghost played as compellingly as does Mescal in the play-within-the-movie.
There are also fine supporting performances by the esteemed Emily Watson as Agnes’ mother-in-law and and Joe Alwyn as Agnes’ brother.
I loved how director Chloe Zhao presents the Globe Theater – as the site of the most spectacular entertainment that the audience would have ever seen or imagined. The crowd enters with the anticipation of a throng entering an NFL stadium on game day. When the play begins, there’s a hush as the audience is enthralled at the wonder of it all – the backdrop, the costumes, the swordplay, and even the primitive special effects.
Zhao, of course, won Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for Nomadland. That indie triumph earned her the payday of a Marvel franchise movie with big stars, The Eternals. Her early film, The Rider, with a nonprofessional actor as the protagonist, made me into a huge Chloé Zhao fan.
The play Hamlet ends with Fortinbras of Norway striding on stage amid the corpses to summarize things, and Zhao doesn’t go there. She avoids the anti-climax by following Billy Wilder’s screenwriting advice – Don’t stick around. I’m very impressed with any filmmaker who ends their film not even one second too late. After all, even Alfred Hitchcock made the mistake of ending Psycho with a psychological expert played by Simon Oakland explaining that Norman Bates’ psychological disorder really does exist and blah blah blah. So, I would say that Chloe Zhao ends Hamlet better than Shakespeare did.
Hamnet is one of the Best Movies of 2025.