A Shakespearean Tragedy (Literally)

            One of the greatest play writes ever that torments high schoolers all over America is Shakespear. His works have been adapted in various forms in cinema for years. Works like Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet have been adapted repeatedly in cinema but placed into a variety of settings. Then, in 2020, Maggie O’Farrell adapted Shakespeare’s life into a historical fiction work called Hamnet. Chloe Zhou decided to adapt this book into film, which came out this year and premiered at festivals to much critical acclaim.

            Hamnet starts with Agnes and Will falling in love. They are both the outcasts of their family. Agnes has a reputation as a witch, and although Will has book smarts, he has no real professional prospects. They quickly get married and have their first kid, a daughter. The problem is Will needs something more. He wants to write, but his family are glove makers. So he escapes his life in rural England to go work in London, so that he can start to lead a life more conducive to his aspirations, but he does continue to return home to his wife, who is raising his one child, but it soon became three, when Agnes had twins.

            Will continues to go and work in London, and even with three children at home, but he keeps promising them that they will be able to come, and he even buys them land and a house outside of London, so that they can all live together. Then Judith, the younger daughter, gets sick, presumably with the plague, and Will gets word, and he starts to rush home. When it seems like Judith is going to be lost, Hamnet, her brother, scoots close to her at night while everyone sleeps and says that he will take her place. The next day Judith is feeling better, and Hamnet has become deathly ill and passes. Will gets home shortly after, and is surprised by the death of his son, but he returns back to London quickly to continue his work.

            One aspect of this movie that stuck out to me was the spirituality of it. It was not Christian, which was surprising given the era and location, but it was more naturalistic. Agnes being portrayed as a “witch” because she liked to spend time in the woods and knew many home remedies played a large roll in this. There were also a large number of shots of nature, and they would just hold on the different forest objects playing the score which created a slight feeling of discomfort and unease. They used the shot of a dark cave multiple times, and they used the stump and roots of a tree that they held the camera on as well. Plus there was a zoomed in shot on moss with gross sound effects of the liquid oozing on it. The blend of these shots and the score made it feel like the woods had a special power to them.

            The spirituality also continued when Agnes gave birth to the twins. She mentioned multiple times that at her death bed she saw that there would be two children, but then she had twins, foreshadowing the loss of one in the future. Also, when giving birth, she said that she vowed to go to church, but never to speak to God again after the death of her mother. Finally, there is the scene of Hamnet and Judith, when Judith is about to die. Hamnet says that he senses death in the house, and that he thinks that they can trick death, so that maybe he will not know who to take, or that death could take him instead, and that is what ends up happening.

            Last week, I talked about Eternity and their depiction of the afterlife. This movie also gave a brief insight into the afterlife. Instead of a purgatory filled with afterlife options, Hamnet was in a vast forest alone. He was calling out for his mother, but no one was there. The camera was showing this through a black veil, which seemed symbolic of passing over to the other side. Slowly as he comes to the realization as to what happened we see him slip into darkness.

            The performances in this movie were amazing. Paul Mescal continues his streak of playing emotionally broken men, and he goes back to doing it well this time. Somehow, he also continues to pull off all the clothes that are given to him as well. Even his weird leather vests just seemed to fit him perfectly. Jesse Buckly was also stunning. She gave two bookending screams that gave me goosebumps. One of the screams was signaling of the birth of her child, and the second was to signify the death of her child. The same action conveying two different emotions. It was powerful.

            Even the younger actors gave solid performances. The relationship between Hamnet and his father was deep, and Hamnet cried twice, once for the death of the hawk, and the second time because his father was leaving for London again. It really felt like he was trying to be strong, but since he was so young, he could not keep it together. Then there was the scene where he died, which was super intense, and I was actually taken out of it for a second, because I was like woah… this kid must pretend that he is convulsing and dying, and he is doing an incredible job.

            I gave this movie four stars, but it did leave me wondering whether it was truly great or just emotionally manipulative. There is the death of the child, which alone is a very emotional occurrence, and of course, the mother would be devasted. There were times in the movie, where I was a little bored, and I did not know where we were ultimately going. The child dying with about 40 minutes left confused me. It felt like a climax, and that shortly after the movie should end, but instead it kept going. Ultimately I do think it was a powerful story, and that it was more than just emotional manipulation, because I have cried at the end of a movie before and given it 2.5 stars because the rest of the story stunk, but the emotional family drama that is the bare bones for this is well told even if it is slow and meandering at times.

            One shot that stuck out to me was the shot of Agnes standing in her kids’ room for the last time before moving and going to London to see Will’s play. It is such a simple shot of her standing there, but that is the spot where her kids grew up, that is the one place that her son who is now gone lived, and it is not just a structure, it is a place filled with memories.

I grew up in one house for most of my life. Eventually when I was in college, it was sold, but even before it was sold, it was emptied of all its belongings, and I still had the chance to go there and visit it multiple times, and although the emptiness of objects felt odd, the house never truly felt empty. In fact, it was still full. Full of memories and the traces of the people that I love. It may not have been visible, but emotionally, it was there, and I think even if I were to go back to that house on Dunmoore Way today, it still feel like home.

            Overall, I think this movie was great. The cinematography was beautiful. It did not reach the level of Train Dreams, but they still did a good job of capturing these natural landscapes and important family moments. The story was moving, and I cried two or three times, and I was not the only one. During the movie, I could hear others crying, and when I left during the credits, the majority of the audience was still sitting there emotionally distraught. This also depicts what the movie was showing at the end. Initially, the family was going through their grief on their own, but at the end of Hamlet, when Hamlet dies, the audience all stuck their hands out to the stage. This includes Hamnet’s mom, who was standing right in the front watching the symbolic death of her child. In the moment, the grief became shared, and that is what it felt like leaving the theater with others crying, the grief was no longer solitary, it was communal.