{"id":309464,"date":"2025-11-27T03:59:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T03:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/309464\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T03:59:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T03:59:06","slug":"hamnet-movie-review-film-summary-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/309464\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamnet movie review & film summary (2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"

What makes\u00a0Chlo\u00e9 Zhao<\/a>\u2019s films\u00a0so special is the way they\u00a0convey nature\u2019s transcendent quality.\u00a0From \u201cThe Rider<\/a>\u201d to her Oscar-winning \u201cNomadland<\/a>\u201d and even her unloved\u00a0Marvel blockbuster \u201cEternals<\/a>,\u201d they\u00a0find the mystical within our everyday surroundings,\u00a0making the\u00a0prosaic\u00a0feel profound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That aesthetic\u00a0instinct\u00a0is the best part of \u201cHamnet,\u201d Zhao\u2019s wildly\u00a0hyped\u00a0fifth film.\u00a0The fictionalized story of how William Shakespeare and his wife worked through the\u00a0loss\u00a0of their son has been overwhelming festival audiences with emotion, leaving viewers and critics alike\u00a0in puddles of\u00a0sobs.\u00a0Jessie Buckley<\/a>\u2019s performance\u00a0in particular has\u00a0inspired effusive praise\u00a0for its raw intensity.\u00a0As the mother of a son, I was bracing myself for \u201cHamnet,\u201d fully expecting that I would be an absolute wreck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I\u00a0wasn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHamnet\u201d\u00a0actually works\u00a0best as a sensory\u00a0experience, before\u00a0its major plot points fall into place. Working with cinematographer Lukasz Zal<\/a>\u00a0(\u201cCold War<\/a>,\u201d \u201cIda\u201d),\u00a0composer Max Richter<\/a>, and sound designer Johnnie Burn, an Oscar winner for his\u00a0haunting\u00a0work on \u201cThe Zone of Interest,\u201d\u00a0Zhao\u00a0establishes\u00a0a heightened forest setting where anything seems possible.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0lush and richly textured,\u00a0unsettling and enveloping at once.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019re\u00a0told early on that\u00a0Buckley\u2019s character, Agnes, is the daughter of a forest witch, and her connection to the earth, the trees,\u00a0and\u00a0the sky\u00a0feels\u00a0tangible and powerful. We first see her\u00a0in an overhead shot, curled in a ball\u00a0in a red dress\u00a0beneath a giant tree, and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0as\u00a0if the\u00a0woods are\u00a0undulating\u00a0and groaning around her.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When she meets cute with a\u00a0guy\u00a0we know only as Will (Paul Mescal<\/a>)\u2014who will eventually turn out to be The Bard\u2014their connection feels just as alive and free. They frolic and\u00a0flirt joyfully,\u00a0and the qualities that make her a weirdo to everyone else make\u00a0her\u00a0wonderful\u00a0to him. In no time,\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0married, then have a daughter named Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), and then twins: a boy and a girl, Hamnet\u00a0(Jacobi Jupe)\u00a0and Judith\u00a0(Olivia Lynes).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then things change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But again, watching them as young parents\u2014playing with their kids, teaching them about the land, squabbling over all the usual\u00a0couples\u2019\u00a0concerns\u2014is more compelling than the\u00a0Big Event\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0on the horizon. Zhao lulls us into their everyday\u00a0activities, and\u00a0supporting players like Emily Watson<\/a> as Will\u2019s mother and Joe Alwyn<\/a> as Agnes\u2019 brother provide further context.\u00a0Working with screenwriter Maggie O\u2019Farrell, whose novel \u201cHamnet\u201d serves as the basis for this film, Zhao\u00a0indicates\u00a0a supernatural bond between the twins\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0delicate and fascinating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hamnet\u2019s shocking death at age 11 shatters this bliss.\u00a0There\u2019s\u00a0nothing subtle about Buckley and Mescal\u2019s performances in the way they portray this bottomless ache:\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0big and shrieky and shrill, and Zhao lingers in their pain in a way that feels uncomfortably voyeuristic.\u00a0The loss of a child is devastating.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0impossible to know what\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0like unless\u00a0you\u2019ve\u00a0experienced it yourself. \u201cHamnet\u201d depicts this tragedy with histrionics that are\u00a0so\u00a0overly\u00a0demonstrative,\u00a0they\u00a0actually\u00a0take\u00a0you out of the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the whole point of \u201cHamnet\u201d is its connection to \u201cHamlet\u201d: Both the book and the film\u00a0suggest that Shakespeare wrote his greatest play as a means of\u00a0processing\u00a0his grief over his son\u2019s death. Sometimes we see this in ways that are obvious\u00a0and groan-worthy, as when Will does the famous \u201cTo be, or not to be\u201d speech while\u00a0standing on the river\u2019s edge.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The play\u2019s the thing, though, to borrow a line from the play itself. And the staging of \u201cHamlet\u201d at the film\u2019s climax provides\u00a0a powerful argument for\u00a0art as an\u00a0opportunity\u00a0for\u00a0healing. We see this\u00a0theme in much more understated, legitimately moving ways in another major awards contender this season, Joachim Trier\u2019s \u201cSentimental Value<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0But there are individual moments within the performance of \u201cHamlet\u201d that are\u00a0gripping in their tension, as\u00a0a\u00a0perplexed\u00a0and bereft Agnes begins to understand what\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0witnessing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The casting of Noah Jupe<\/a> (Jacobi Jupe\u2019s older brother) as the actor playing Hamlet is a clever touch that ties back to the film\u2019s spiritual connection.\u00a0The choice seems to say: This is who our son might have become if\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0lived long enough to take the stage himself,\u00a0something\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0dreamed of doing as a mischievous little boy.\u00a0(Both Jupe brothers make a strong impression within their limited screen time.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

And\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0an overhead shot at a crucial moment during the play that took my breath away. It suggests the power of theater as a living, breathing thing to change hearts and minds, and visually, it serves as a mirror image of Agnes in the forest at the\u00a0film\u2019s\u00a0start.\u00a0The craft on display alone is enough to bring a tear to your\u00a0eye.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What makes\u00a0Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s films\u00a0so special is the way they\u00a0convey nature\u2019s transcendent quality.\u00a0From \u201cThe Rider\u201d to her Oscar-winning \u201cNomadland\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-309464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}