Hamnet is a devastatingly beautiful tale of living with profound loss

I read Maggie O’Farrell’s devastating novel Hamnet a couple of years ago and was floored by its powerful depiction of grief in the historical imagining of Shakespeare’s personal life. But still, I thought I was prepared for the film adaptation by director Chloe Zhao. However, under her ethereal touch, the film takes on a whole new weight, which I’ve thought about daily since watching. 

Not much is known about Shakespeare’s family, except that he had a son, Hamnet (a name interchangeable with Hamlet in the 16th century). O’Farrell, in harmony (as a co-writer) with Zhao, suggests that the bard’s arguably most influential play, Hamlet, was inspired by the loss of his son, which seems entirely convincing in this instance. 

A film about the death of a child naturally stirs a visceral and primal reaction as an unfathomable tragedy, and the film grapples with how anyone can come to live with such agony and process such a profound loss. 

Yet, before loss, comes love. William (Paul Mescal) is a Latin tutor to a wealthy nearby family, repaying his father’s debts and considered a disappointment to his family as a man without a trade. Emerging from the woods is a wild woman, known as the daughter of a forest witch, Agnes (Golden-Globe-nominated Jessie Buckley), whom William is instantly taken by. 

Much of the film is spent in this bliss, with their ever-growing family and the giddiness of their initial rebellious relationship, which defies their parents’ wishes. That is, until the birth of their second child. Agnes has the gift of foresight and is troubled to learn during her second birth that she is having twins: she has seen her deathbed, and only two children stand beside her. 

One child, Judith (Olivia Lynes), is born not breathing, but is gently coaxed back to life and deemed to be the miracle blessing to watch and worry over. The other twin, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), is born healthy and strong. It’s inevitably a waiting game – we know the fatal turn this film will take – but the supernatural means by which it gets there make it more moving. 

In a tragedy of errors, Agnes’s life is dedicated to shielding Judith from London’s pollutions and illnesses of the city, and when she comes down with bubonic plague, Agnes throws all of her magic into the task of saving her daughter. 

Hamnet feels death’s presence watching over them as he climbs into bed with his sister and pledges to live up to his promise to his father: to be brave and protect her. The duo tried to be interchangeable in life, swapping clothes to trick their family, and Hamnet wants to perform the ultimate sacrifice and deceive death itself and take her place. 

Agnes’s guttural screams at the loss of her child are haunting, even days after witnessing them, and filled with so much honesty that it’s a credit to the actors for being able to offer such a vulnerable performance of this immense tragedy. Buckley is exceptional, carrying a realism that effortlessly grows and fractures with her chemistry with Mescal. She delivers one of her finest performances and deserves all the Oscar buzz she’s getting. 

The forest, too, has its own form of lyrical prescience, stirring and soothing Agnes to keep her connected to the cycles of endings and new life. All of this is made more powerful by Max Richter’s mesmerising score and the striking cinematography that lends itself to Zhao’s distinctive, intimate style. 

Mescal is no stranger to tugging on the heartstrings in his work, from All of Us Strangers to Normal People, but this particular musing on loss allows him to also demonstrate the true scope of his abilities. Torn apart by their loss, Shakespeare is adrift when he is faced with the finality of his actions that prioritise his life and plays in London over his family – something Agnes struggles to forgive. 

Hamnet is not about Shakespeare’s accolades; they’re kept firmly in the dark along with his name for the most part, which is only apparent through the context of going on to own the largest house in Stratford-Upon-Avon. His talent, though satisfying to see flourish after years of being shunned by his father, is secondary to the art that he creates. 

When he returns to London after his son’s death, William is changed. Agnes doesn’t hear from him for months, until she is given a flyer for his new surprise tragedy, which holds her son’s name, Hamnet. 

William, in denial, is adrift from himself, constantly searching the corners of the world for a son he refuses to believe could simply stop existing. He must be somewhere, and Hamlet is William’s attempt to process that grief by giving himself the chance to do the thing he didn’t get in life – a final goodbye. 

It dawns on Agnes, who watches first in rage and then in tears, that William wrote the play to swap places with his son, take his pain and suffering for himself, with Mescal even playing the King’s ghost on stage. Art has always been a cathartic form of self-expression, especially when it comes to processing incomprehensible emotions, and it feels poetically apt that William’s finest play would be born out of this immense personal tragedy. 

In a poignant final scene, Hamnet gets his final wish: to be a player in his father’s company, immortalised on stage for generations to witness the love and heartbreak over losing their child. An experience that was once deeply personal to Agnes and William becomes a melancholic reflection on the precious gift of life that the entire audience can’t help but be devastated by. 

Ultimately, the film achieves a rare feat as it demonstrates, in its rawest form, the universality and inevitability of grief and the immense healing power that art can provide to survive it. 

Hamnet is released in cinemas on 9 January 

Images: Focus Features