There are some movies you watch for entertainment, some you watch because everyone is talking about them, and then there are movies that stay with you long after the credits roll.
Hamnet belongs to the third category.
I went into Hamnet expecting a period drama about William Shakespeare. I expected the usual things that come with Shakespeare: old English settings, theatre, poetry, complicated conversations and perhaps a little intellectual showing off.
What I got instead was something much more personal.
Hamnet is really a story about love, family, absence and grief. Shakespeare is important to the story, of course, but the movie is far more interested in the people behind the famous name. At its heart is Agnes, Shakespeare’s wife, and the devastating loss of their young son, Hamnet.
Directed by Chloé Zhao, the film stars Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare, alongside Emily Watson and Joe Alwyn. It is adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed 2020 novel Hamnet. Focus Features describes the film as a story of the love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
And honestly, that description doesn’t prepare you for how emotional this movie becomes.
How long is Hamnet?
Hamnet has a runtime of approximately 2 hours and 5 minutes (125 minutes). Some listings give it as 126 minutes, but the commonly reported running time is 2 hours and 5 minutes.
That may sound long if you’re looking for something fast-paced, but Hamnet is not that kind of movie.
It takes its time.
And that is both one of its greatest strengths and one of the reasons some viewers may struggle with it.
What Is Hamnet About?
The movie imagines the family life of William Shakespeare before he became the legendary playwright we know today.
But there is an interesting decision here: the movie doesn’t constantly remind you that you are watching Shakespeare.
Paul Mescal’s character is often simply called Will.
We meet him as a young man rather than as the untouchable literary genius history eventually turned him into. He falls in love with Agnes, a free-spirited young woman played by Jessie Buckley.
Their relationship is one of the things I enjoyed most about the first part of the film.
There is warmth between them. There is attraction. There is playfulness. There is also a sense that these are two people who genuinely enjoy being around each other.
Agnes is particularly fascinating.
She isn’t presented as simply “Shakespeare’s wife.” The film gives her a personality, a history and a strong connection to the natural world around her. She is unconventional, independent and almost mystical in the way she interacts with her surroundings.
The film even gives her a reputation connected to witchcraft, adding a slightly magical quality to the story.
Then the story changes.
The family has children, including twins Judith and Hamnet. Shakespeare’s career begins pulling him away from home, and eventually tragedy arrives when Hamnet dies.
That loss becomes the emotional centre of the movie.
And from there, Hamnet asks one enormous question:
What happens when unbearable personal grief becomes art?
Jessie Buckley Is the Heart of the Movie
If you ask me what the biggest reason to watch Hamnet is, my answer is simple:
Jessie Buckley.
Her performance as Agnes is extraordinary.
There are scenes where she barely needs dialogue. Her face does the talking.
Her character goes through an emotional journey that would be difficult for any actor, because grief in this movie isn’t presented as one simple emotion.
There is sadness.
There is anger.
There is guilt.
There is disbelief.
There is love.
And there is that horrible feeling of trying to continue living when a part of your life has suddenly disappeared.
Buckley throws herself completely into that experience.
Several critics singled out her performance, with Time Out calling it extraordinary and praising both Buckley and Mescal for delivering some of their strongest work.
For me, this is where the movie becomes more than a Shakespeare story.
You don’t have to be a Shakespeare fan to understand Agnes.
You don’t have to know anything about Hamlet.
You simply have to understand what it means to love someone and fear losing them.
Paul Mescal Gives Shakespeare a Human Face
Paul Mescal has an interesting job here because Shakespeare is arguably the most famous character in the movie, yet the screenplay deliberately avoids turning him into a larger-than-life genius.
Instead, Mescal gives us a quieter Will.
He’s a husband.
He’s a father.
He’s an ambitious young man.
He’s also someone who isn’t always there when his family needs him.
That last part is important because Hamnet doesn’t completely romanticize Shakespeare.
His career takes him away from his family. While he is building a reputation in London, Agnes is dealing with the realities of raising their children.
The movie therefore creates an interesting contrast between the artist creating something that will live forever and the family he leaves behind to do it.
Mescal handles that tension well.
His performance is much quieter than Buckley’s, but that works for the character. He doesn’t need to dominate every scene.
The Most Painful Part of Hamnet
I’m deliberately not going to describe the film’s most emotional scenes in detail because I think Hamnet works better when you experience them yourself.
But I will say this:
The movie understands that grief isn’t just about the moment someone dies.
It’s about everything that comes afterward.
It’s waking up the next morning.
It’s seeing an empty space.
It’s remembering something ordinary.
It’s realizing that the person you loved will never walk through that door again.
That is what makes the movie so painful.
The death itself is devastating, but the emotional aftermath is where Zhao really spends her time.
And this is also where I think the movie will divide audiences.
Some people will find it deeply moving.
Others may feel that it pushes the emotion too hard.
There are critics who loved the film’s emotional intensity, while others felt that the constant emphasis on grief became excessive. The Los Angeles Times, for example, argued that the film becomes overwhelmed by its sadness, while RogerEbert.com praised its sensory filmmaking but found that its emotional impact didn’t completely land.
I can understand both sides.
Chloé Zhao Makes Grief Beautiful
One thing that immediately stands out about Hamnet is how beautiful it looks.
Chloé Zhao has a particular way of filming nature, and it works extremely well here.
The forests, fields, houses and countryside don’t simply feel like backgrounds.
They feel alive.
There is something almost dreamlike about the way the camera moves through the environment.
The film’s cinematography by Łukasz Żal gives the movie a soft, earthy and intimate appearance. The natural surroundings often feel connected to Agnes herself.
That visual style is one of the reasons Hamnet doesn’t feel like a conventional historical drama.
It feels almost like a memory.
Sometimes beautiful.
Sometimes frightening.
Sometimes distant.
Sometimes painfully close.
RogerEbert.com also highlighted the film’s sensory qualities, particularly Zhao’s use of nature, cinematography and sound to create an immersive atmosphere.
The Connection to Hamlet
Of course, the big question is:
Did Shakespeare really write Hamlet because his son Hamnet died?
This is where you need to separate history from storytelling.
The film is inspired by Maggie O’Farrell’s novel and presents a fictionalized interpretation of the connection between Hamnet’s death and Shakespeare’s later creation of Hamlet.
There is no definitive historical proof that the death of Hamnet directly caused Shakespeare to write Hamlet.
The movie isn’t a documentary.
It is a dramatic interpretation.
And I actually think that makes the film more interesting.
Rather than claiming, “This is exactly what happened,” Hamnet essentially asks us to imagine what might have happened.
Could a father transform unbearable grief into one of the greatest tragedies ever written?
Could a mother’s pain become part of the emotional foundation of a masterpiece?
We don’t know.
But as a piece of storytelling, it is incredibly powerful.
The Guardian described the film as a speculative but audacious reimagining of the origins of Hamlet, while noting that the historical connection remains uncertain.
The Final Act Is Why You Should Watch It
For me, the most rewarding part of Hamnet is how the movie eventually brings personal grief and theatre together.
The film isn’t simply saying that tragedy inspired Shakespeare.
It goes further.
It suggests that art can give people somewhere to put emotions they don’t know how to express.
That idea really connected with me.
Think about it.
Sometimes you can’t explain what you’re feeling to another person.
Sometimes talking isn’t enough.
Sometimes you need a song.
A movie.
A painting.
A poem.
A story.
Something that can carry the emotion for you.
That is what Hamnet ultimately says about Shakespeare’s theatre.
Art can turn private pain into something other people recognize in themselves.
And that is a beautiful idea.
Is Hamnet Too Slow?
Let’s be honest.
Yes.
For some viewers, Hamnet will feel slow.
The first half especially takes its time establishing Agnes, Will and their family.
There aren’t constant twists.
There aren’t huge dramatic set pieces.
There isn’t a new revelation every ten minutes.
If your idea of a good movie is something that immediately grabs you and never lets go, this probably isn’t the movie for you.
But if you appreciate character-driven films, Hamnet rewards patience.
The pacing is deliberate because the movie wants you to become attached to these people before taking everything away.
And I think that is important.
If you don’t care about Hamnet before the tragedy, the emotional climax won’t have the same effect.
So the slow build serves a purpose.
Still, I wouldn’t blame anyone for feeling that the movie could have been slightly shorter.
At around two hours and five minutes, it asks you to sit with its emotions for quite a while.
Why You Should Watch Hamnet
I would recommend Hamnet for several reasons.
First, Jessie Buckley.
Even if you’re not particularly interested in Shakespeare, her performance alone makes the movie worth seeing.
Second, Paul Mescal.
He gives us a Shakespeare who feels like a real person rather than a monument from a history textbook.
Third, the cinematography.
This is a movie that deserves to be watched on a good screen. The countryside, forests, interiors and theatre sequences are beautifully captured.
Fourth, the emotional story.
At its core, this isn’t really about Shakespeare.
It’s about parents.
It’s about marriage.
It’s about ambition.
It’s about the price of being away from the people you love.
And most importantly, it’s about grief.
Finally, the idea behind the movie is fascinating.
The possibility that one man’s greatest work could have been shaped by the death of his son gives Hamnet an emotional connection to Hamlet that makes Shakespeare’s famous tragedy feel different.
My Verdict
I went into Hamnet expecting Shakespeare.
I came away thinking about family.
And I think that’s the movie’s greatest achievement.
It takes a historical figure we have turned into almost a myth and brings him back down to earth.
Will isn’t simply Shakespeare.
He’s a husband.
He’s a father.
He’s a man trying to build something.
Agnes isn’t simply the woman history remembers as Shakespeare’s wife.
She’s a mother dealing with unimaginable pain.
And Hamnet isn’t simply a footnote in Shakespeare’s biography.
For the duration of this movie, he becomes a child with a family, a personality and a life that mattered.
That makes his loss hurt.
Is Hamnet perfect? No.
I think it occasionally becomes too heavy with its emotion, and its slow pace won’t work for everyone. Some viewers will find its interpretation of Shakespeare’s inspiration too speculative.
But I also think that missing Hamnet simply because you aren’t a Shakespeare fan would be a mistake.
You don’t need to know Shakespeare’s plays.
You don’t need to have read Maggie O’Farrell’s novel.
You don’t even need to be particularly interested in historical dramas.
If you like movies about love, family, loss and the strange ways human beings try to survive tragedy, there is a lot here for you.
My rating: 8.5/10.
Hamnet is beautiful, painful and occasionally overwhelming. It isn’t the kind of movie I would recommend when you’re looking for something light to watch on a Friday night.
But if you’re ready for a serious emotional drama, give it your attention.
And keep some tissues nearby.
You may need them.
Final Thought
What stayed with me most about Hamnet isn’t the idea that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet because his son died.
It’s the larger idea that sometimes the things that break us can also become the things through which we communicate with the world.
Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy has survived for centuries.
Hamnet asks us to imagine the human pain that may have existed behind it.
And whether you believe that connection is historically true or simply a beautiful piece of fiction, the movie makes you feel it.
For me, that’s enough reason to watch.
James
