Her POV: ‘Hamnet’ treats grief as a catalyst to reimagine the world

In her column “Her POV,” Blyss Cleveland reviews classic and contemporary films directed by women.

Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques. 

This review contains spoilers.

Halfway through “Hamnet” (2025), my attention turned to the sound of a theatergoer crying a few rows ahead of me. The remainder of the film was periodically scored by weeping. The final scene echoes this experience — the catharsis of engaging with art in a communal setting.

“Hamnet,” directed by Chloé Zhao, is an evocative adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 bestselling novel of the same name. The story is a work of historical fiction that imagines the death of William Shakespeare’s son as the inspiration behind the bard’s play “Hamlet.” Zhao co-wrote the script with O’Farrell, and the sparse dialogue has a poetic quality. A film about the death of a child is guaranteed to be a tearjerker, yet Zhao’s work gains deeper resonance by depicting tragedy as the catalyst for using art to reimagine the world.

Shakespeare is the most famous English-language playwright, but Agnes (Jessie Buckley) is at the center of this universe. She is a healer and seer, known in Stratford-upon-Avon as a witchy woman. Will (Paul Mescal) is paying off his cruel and abusive father’s debt by tutoring Agnes’s younger siblings in Latin, and he cannot focus for want of catching a glimpse of the bewitching maiden. Meanwhile, Agnes busies herself by communing with nature and tending to her pet hawk. She is an early modern woman — independent and unconcerned with marriage.

They say one of the fastest ways to get a man is to stop looking for one, which explains why Will traipses into Agnes’s forest refuge with the gift of a leather glove. This would be a thoughtful gesture if she was not already in possession of one. Shakespeare has introduced many words and phrases into our lexicon, and it is funny to see him portrayed as a man who approaches random women with “Can I talk to you for a minute?” energy. The answer is no, he cannot — he is tongue-tied.

Agnes challenges the so-called man of letters to tell her a story. Will transforms into a raconteur. He recounts the myth of Orpheus, a preternaturally talented mortal whose bride Eurydice dies, and who fails to bring her back from the Underworld. Telling a story about lost love is a gamble, but it works.

We are then treated to a languorous montage of the lovers. When Agnes applies a poultice to a wound on Will’s forehead, it mirrors him wooing her through storytelling. Love, the film suggests, is about using the gifts the universe has endowed you with to make the world a better place for your beloved.

Will intends to marry Agnes, and their timeline is accelerated once Agnes becomes pregnant with their first child. When her brother asks why she wishes to marry a “pasty-faced scholar,” she asserts that Will loves her for who she is. What goes unsaid is that marriage will free them from their respective homes. 

Once married and with a child on the way, Agnes encourages the creatively restless Will to travel to London to pursue his artistic ambitions. Agnes and their three children become accustomed to Will’s long absences. Agnes is seemingly happy to inhabit the role of the understanding wife of an artist, although it later costs her.

The audience is treated to pleasant scenes of family life punctuated by Zhao’s use of fades to black to signify the passage of time. Aided by Łukasz Żal’s sumptuous cinematography, Zhao’s camerawork stays high and far away from the action throughout the film. This God’s-eye view suggests the film’s events happened long ago, or perhaps not at all. Nevertheless, from the lushness of the countryside and comparative dankness of London, the sweeping views serve as a foreboding preview of the unhappy times that lie ahead. 

Will is away in London when the plague besieges his youngest daughter. His mother Mary (Emily Watson) utters the prophetic words that children aren’t promised tomorrow while holding vigil for her sick grandchildren.

It was at this point that weeping began in the theater, but my eyes were dry. My emotional reserve was informed by witnessing Agnes settle into the role of long-suffering wife and mother with no desires of her own. I don’t want to harp on one of the only unsatisfying aspects of the film, but why center the story on Agnes and make her blank?

But then comes the ending scene, likely the reason Buckley nabbed the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama and a nomination for Best Actress at the upcoming Academy Awards. Agnes is deep in her grief and travels to see “Hamlet.” She is wild with fury at the use of her dead son’s name in a tragedy. After several outbursts, she pushes through the crowd to the front of the stage. She is spellbound when Hamlet (a sensational Noah Jupe) appears. Agnes’ face telegraphs several emotions, and her eyes well with tears as she realizes what Will has done — he has written a reparative rendition of his own father-son relationship and canonized his son as a prince who dies, but also lives again and again.

Other critics have reported crying at “Hamnet” screenings and even characterized the film as “grief porn.” The film is designed to provoke an emotional reaction, but I reject the assertion that it is gratuitous, and therefore not artistic. A child’s death is inherently sad, but it is not reductive to use such an event as inspiration for art. Childhood mortality rates were astronomical during Shakespeare’s time and have dropped precipitously over the last few hundred years, a trend that risks reversal because of political choices. One can only hope that the practice of publicly weeping for the death of a fictional child will galvanize a public that has seemingly become inured to such tragedies.

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