Review: 'Hamnet,' a tale of William Shakespeare and his wife, beautifully captures how nature and grief are lived and translated into art

Director Chloe Zhao opens “Hamnet” in a forest, the sort of magical place where William Shakespeare could have set one of his lighter comedies, like “As You Like It” or “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — which makes the emotional ride this imagined drama about Shakespeare’s personal life all the more moving.

Anne Hathaway (Jessie Buckley), referred to here as Agnes, spends her time in this forest collecting medicinal herbs and training her falcon — both talents she learned from her mother, who was labeled a forest witch. It’s also where Will (Paul Mescal), who teaches Latin to Agnes’ brothers to pay off his family’s debt to her father (David Wilmot), encounters Agnes. 

On their first meeting, he kisses her and she sends him away. On their second meeting, she asks him to tell a story — and he recalls the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, which charms her. They have sex, and Agnes becomes pregnant. Her parents banish her, and Agnes and Will marry and have a daughter, Susanna.

Time passes, in an ethereal way that suits Zhao’s beautifully meditative style, and Agnes becomes pregnant again. Will is miserable trying to write in the country, so Agnes agrees that Will should go to London to pursue writing plays and staging them.

Agnes then gives birth to twins — a daughter, Judith, who seems at first to be stillborn but gradually comes to life, and a son, called Hamnet. All three children are a joy to their mother, and dote on Will when he occasionally comes home. In one scene, the three kids portray the witches from Will’s play, “Macbeth,” and he laughs heartily.

I do not intend to spoil what happens next, suffice it to say it involves how young Hamnet is connected to Shakespeare’s similarly named play — a play about parents and children dealing with grief and loss, and the expression of those emotions through some of the most soulful words ever put to paper. (In the film, the two also are connected by blood: The young actor who plays Hamnet, Jacobi Jupe, is the brother to Noah Jupe, who in the film’s shattering climax plays the actor performing as Hamlet in Will’s company.)

The script — which Zhao wrote with Maggie O’Farrell, on whose novel the movie is based — doesn’t tell when it can show, and Zhao shows with subtlety and quiet inference. This is a movie that gives its rewards to those willing to sit with it, to follow Agnes as she brings their children together with nature and grieves when tragedy strikes, and to listen to Will turn those emotions into poetry.

Mescal is ferociously good as the brooding Will, but it’s Buckley who becomes the heart and soul of “Hamnet” — as she channels Agnes’ bond with nature, and primarily as she lets waves of emotions play out quietly on her face in the movie’s brilliant ending. 

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‘Hamnet’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 5, in theaters. Rated PG-13 for thematic content, some strong sexuality, and partial nudity. Running time: 125 minutes.