The Oscar-tipped Hamnet, starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, is a film that shows the full range of human emotions, from elation to despair.
It begins with a young William Shakespeare falling in love with Agnes (the other name by which the playwright’s wife, historically referred to as Anne Hathaway, was known), and goes on to explore their immense grief after tragedy strikes their young family.
But while it explores the sad origins of one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, Hamlet, it never portrays Agnes as just the playwright’s wife – she is at the heart of the film.
“She was the full story of what I understand a woman to be,” Buckley tells BBC News. “And their capacity as women, and as mothers, and as lovers, and as people who have a language unto their own beside gigantic men of literature like Shakespeare.
“It was honestly one of the biggest privileges of my life to live beside and inside this amazing woman, Agnes.”
Hamnet is adapted from the hugely successful book of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell, which was published in 2020.