{"id":358706,"date":"2025-12-19T20:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T20:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358706\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T20:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T20:47:08","slug":"read-screenplay-by-chloe-zhaos-maggie-ofarrell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358706\/","title":{"rendered":"Read Screenplay By Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s & Maggie O’Farrell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDeadline\u2019s Read the Screenplay<\/a> series spotlighting the scripts behind the awards season\u2019s most talked-about movies continues with\u00a0Hamnet<\/a>. Directed by Chlo\u00e9 Zhao<\/a>, the film was co-written by Zhao and the book\u2019s author Maggie O\u2019Farrell, whose novel,\u00a0Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague, serves as the source material.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe romantic drama had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and won the People\u2019s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival<\/a>, a strong indicator of Oscar success. That has borne out in the awards noms; the film has picked up 11 Critics Choice noms<\/a> including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, six Golden Globe noms<\/a> including those two categories, and it made the AFI\u2019s Top 10 Movies of 2025 list<\/a>.\u00a0It began its theatrical rollout November 26.<\/p>\n

\n\tStarring Jessie Buckley as Agnes, Paul Mescal as Will Shakespeare, and Jacobi Jupe as\u00a0Hamnet\u00a0Shakespeare, the heart-wrenching story imagines the life and death of Hamnet, who tragically succumbs to the bubonic plague at age 11. His loss is said to have profoundly influenced the playwright, leading him to later write his classic tragedy Hamlet.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe true protagonist in he story is Agnes Hathaway (historically known as Anne Hathaway, but referred to as Agnes in the novel\/film).\u00a0She is portrayed as a free-spirited woman deeply connected to nature and herbal remedies \u2014 a mysterious outsider in her community.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first act dedicates significant time to the passionate, unconventional courtship and marriage between Agnes and Will, a young Latin tutor who is struggling under the thumb of his harsh father. It establishes a powerful, magnetic but eventually strained bond between two artistic souls.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe plot is driven by the untimely death of\u00a0Hamnet, vividly depicting the immediate, visceral grief of the family, particularly Agnes, who is left alone in Stratford while William is establishing his career in London.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHamnet\u2019s death creates a profound rift between the parents. Their shared grief is experienced in isolation, with William finding an outlet in his work and Agnes retreating into herself, unable to connect with her husband\u2019s distant, intellectual processing of the pain.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe final act explores the popular theory that Shakespeare channeled his grief over his son,\u00a0Hamnet, into his great tragedy Hamlet. The film culminates in Agnes secretly attending the first performance of the play, initially seeing the use of her son\u2019s name as a betrayal, but eventually finding a complex form of tribute and reconciliation in the transformative power of the art.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe script\u2019s primary achievement is humanizing the legend. It strips away the myth of \u201cThe Bard\u201d to tell a deeply intimate, emotional story about a mother, a father and the devastating cost of their son\u2019s life and death, arguing that this domestic tragedy was the wellspring for a literary masterpiece.<\/p>\n

\n\tRead the screenplay below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deadline\u2019s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the scripts behind the awards season\u2019s most talked-about movies continues with\u00a0Hamnet. Directed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[77737,88,3098,77739,107297,206,172624],"class_list":["post-358706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-chlou00e9-zhao","tag-entertainment","tag-focus-features","tag-hamnet","tag-maggie-ofarrell","tag-movies","tag-read-the-screenplay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}