Hamnet (2025)

Hamnet is an historical drama, directed by Chloe Zhao, adapted from the 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell. It is an imagined, fictionalised account of Agnes Hathaway’s life with William Shakespeare, with the action centred on the death of their son from the bubonic plague. It has received critical success and Jessie Buckley recently won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama.

Please don’t judge me. I bought the book a few years ago, but have never completed it. I have read several of Maggie O’Farrell’s previous novels and adore her lyrical, simple story-telling, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t read about a child’s death.

I feel bad that I gave up on the book, something I rarely do. But I read at night, sleep lightly and dream vividly. It was a rational, possibly even, a good decision for who I am and what is happening in my own life.

Yet, for some reason I could go and see it in a cinema. This says something about the intimacy of the page and the way it worms into my brain, over the enveloping sensation of the screen, which engulfs like a wave and then retracts.

As someone who writes it pained me to think of Maggie O’Farrell going deep down and dark to produce the novel. And yet when Jessie Buckley’s Agnes lets out the deepest anguished scream, it felt like a release that I was almost jealous of – a letting go, a deep howling acceptance of her fate.

The film is about the impact of grief. No two people process it in the same way. A relationship stutters through grief, as it leaves many of us inarticulate or unreachable. Loss hardens us against the necessary vulnerability required for love.

But the film is not only about grief and loss. There is another theme – recognition, being seen, heard, acknowledged. Agnes or Anne Hathaway has been minimised by history. Often portrayed as the quiet, abandoned woman who stayed at home while her husband took on the London stage. She did not write, so history can erase her spirit. There are no pretty words that conjure her love, her feelings, her grief, her wisdom and her support or insight into her husband’s creativity.

In the screenplay, however, she has wisdom that is grounded in the forest. She has a generosity and a strength that some previous re-tellings have denied her.

And there is a recognition for her lost son. Hamnet dies, but Hamlet lives through the written word. Hamnet becomes Hamlet – a grown young man torn by the choices of adulthood. A catharsis for centuries of audiences. That is what art can do. And in this retelling of Anne and William, art is not just the product of one great genius, but the result of relationships and shared experiences.

I should add that alongside the glowing central performance of Jessie Buckley the film is a visual treat. The outside is verdant and lush, but the interiors are sparse and candle-lit. The cinematography mimics the tones and style of Vermeer and Durer. There is a meticulous attention to detail, no fake lashes, no cosmetic tweaking, just dirty fingernails. The past looks like a different country.

I watched the film tired and the pacing for the first thirty minutes was slow. This is as much a reflection on me as it is the film, but I am aware that this film is not for everyone. It is not action-packed. Humour is minimal. It takes its time to fill the space that loss leaves with long shots and silence. Much of the appeal of the movie comes from a deep-seated desire to wallow in how awful the world can be and currently is. It offers a needed space that brings attention to the toll of loss, grief and trauma. Some critics have called this “grief-porn”, I prefer the Aristotelian term – catharsis.

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