150 Word Review: 'Hamnet' (2025)
To be a good movie, or not to be a good movie
The filthy Elizabethan-era fingernails in Hamnet are realistic; these are the hands of commoners in the English countryside of the 16th century. It’s a well-considered historical detail in an otherwise modern movie about parental loss.
Director Chloé Zhao’s melodrama, based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, takes place in a Renaissance Faire populated by demigods. Paul Mescal stars as William Shakespeare, the greatest, hunkiest writer in the English language. Jessie Buckley is almost too good, too much of an emotional powerhouse, to play Shakespeare’s earthy wife, Agnes. The Shakespeares aren’t perfect; Will’s always away at work. Meanwhile, Agnes and the kids fight the plague.
This isn’t a tragedy; it’s a sad story. Zhao seems more interested in intimate, domestic moments than the bard’s grief, or his wife’s broken-hearted fury. The climax should have left me wrecked. See? The distant writer cares! I heard some sniffles in the audience. I sniffed.
By and large I thought it was pretty wonderful--Jessie Buckley is a marvel--but was disappointed in the use of that same damn Max Richter piece for the climax. He's already writing the score, Chloe, you can't ask him to write a NEW piece to tear our hearts out?