Hamnet Review: A Heart-Rending Watch

The last scene in Hamnet will be seared in movie memory, notes Deepa Gahlot.

Like her Oscar-winning Nomadland, Chloe Zhao has picked another story that is narrated from the point of view of a woman. This time, in her adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's celebrated novel, Hamnet, the world's most celebrated playwright gets a secondary role.

William (Paul Mescal) is the son of a glover, who has no interest in his fathe's business. However, he takes on the work of a Latin tutor to pay off the family's debt. There he spots a woman he is attracted to. She is Agnes (Jessie Buckley), who wanders the forest with her hawk, and has shaman-like powers, for which she is called a 'witch's daughter'.

They fall in love and marry, she gives birth to a daughter. She takes note of his frustration at being unable to write and sends him off to London to build his career in the theatre.

Left behind, she gives birth to twins Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) and Judith. William comes to visit, but in London, he is acquiring fame and money, so his attention is on his work.

Then the bubonic plague strikes and their 11-year-old son dies. Agnes had already predicted that she would have two children on her deathbed, but her inability to save Hamnet shatters her and her husband.

William has an escape in his successful career in London, but she is left to cope with the loss and grief.

His son's death leads Shakespeare to writing one of his immortal tragedies, Hamlet. Zhao examines how grief affects the parents. For Agnes, it almost unravels her soul, for William, it finds outlet in his art.

Shakespeare is very different here

Hamnet's portrayal of Agnes and William is very different from the way they have been shown in other books and films. He is not the flamboyant actor and writer, but a sensitive father who has trouble coming to terms with his son's death. Many writers have speculated on the life of Agnes (sometimes referred to as Anne), who was much older than her husband and they were married after she fell pregnant by him.

Frank Harris, in the book, The Man Shakespeare (1909), speculated that Shakespeare loathed his wife because of the forced marriage and that led him to leave Stratford to pursue a career in the theatre.

Germaine Greer, in her book Shakespeare's Wife, writes that he was not forced to marry her. Rather, he pursued her.

As a husband, Shakespeare offered few prospects; his family had fallen into financial ruin, while Hathaway, from a family in good standing both socially and financially, would have been considered a catch. Furthermore, a 'handfast' and pregnancy were frequent precursors to legal marriage at the time, and that there was no reason to assume that he did not intend to marry her.

Jessie Buckley's magic

Maggie O'Farrell (who also co-wrote the screenplay) and Zhao's picture of Agnes as a healer with powers of prediction is interesting. Buckley (a frontrunner for the Oscar with her intense performance) plays her with a slightly other-worldly air, but her mourning for her son is heart-rending. The last scene will be seared in movie memory.

Zhao's cinematographer Łukasz Żal captures the lush English countryside and the Tudor period homes and exteriors with meticulous detail.

Hamnet has been nominated in eight categories, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Direction, Casting, Music, Adapted Screenplay, Production Design and Costume Design.

Hamnet Review Rediff Rating:

• MOVIE REVIEWS