My first time at the Regent Theatre in Ballarat, with the intent of seeing Crime 101. But a historic-fashioned cinema yearns to show me a revered period drama, does it not? I haven’t chased the Oscar nominations hard this year, but it turns out, I have already seen 4 of the 10 Best Picture nominations without even trying – Burgonia, Sinners, Frankenstein, One Battle After Another – I just haven’t written about them. And, you know, Jessie Buckley is supposed to be phenomenal. It’s also Chloé Zhao’s next directorial pursuit since The Eternals, following on from Nomadland. Sounds like good viewing even without the Oscar recommendation. I anticipate tears and didn’t bring tissues 😢
Will (Paul Mescal) is a Latin tutor besotted by his pupils’ oldest sister Agnes (Jessie Buckley), who prefers to spend the majority of her time in solitude amongst the overgrown woodland trees. Against both families’ best wishes, they will be wed, and suffer the great slings and arrows, as the story goes, that might inspire some of Shakespeare’s great works.
Gosh, I already love Jessie Buckley. Men is the first of her catalogue that springs to mind, but she’s nary had a miss – The Lost Daughter, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Misbehavior, Wicked Little Letters, Women Talking. I’ve been contemplating my favourite actresses lately, and Jessie Buckley would have to be considered for Top 5 – Top 3 even. Paul Mescal, on the other hand, I haven’t been wrapped up in so far. I see the spell of Aftersun, but I wasn’t taken by it. And All of Us Strangers tanked for me, while he plays his part well. But I certainly understand the value of Mescal now – this performance has to be his most layered, mature one by far. Hamnet is a movie of resounding emotional depths held together by slower nature-ridden paths. Will is a sensitive father, absolutely shattered by the events of this movie and tortured by himself throughout. The two scenes back-to-back of Will berating himself at his desk for only being good as a writer, banging on the table and crying with Agnes, while then Agnes knowing what’s best for him is an excursion to London, ring so true to me, and I was proud to witness such dialogue – “he’s not mad at me, he’s mad at himself”, and how could Agnes ever suggest Will regrets marrying her. Then throw in Agnes’ lines about Will being a “fuller man than she’s ever met”, and how he “loves her as she is”, when she’s a bit odd herself, and it’s beautiful, poignant love. But Hamnet is a hard watch, and for a good twenty minutes through the middle of this experience, whilst I considered the quality very good, Hamnet would be a movie that I would NEVER WATCH AGAIN. How’s this movie going to pull any sort of uplifting ending out of the fire, I thought, after so much heartache?
Agnes and Will’s daughter Judith (Olivia Lynes) is a cat going through her nine lives. First thought stillborn and weak, then suffering the bubonic plague. Then brother Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) starts talking about being watched, and how he’ll swap places to fool the entity to take him; and yeah, all of a sudden this movie turns into Longlegs with the demon at the door, and a great stillness in the air. Hamnet dies and Agnes lets out this grief-full scream like her crushed heart is going to leap out of her mouth. It’s heavy, in the same realm as a mother’s anguish shown in Hereditary, Wind River. Buckley could’ve got nominated for her awards for that moment alone. However, Hamnet’s greatest asset throughout is the character development, and it might be greater than any I’ve ever seen. It’s incremental, as we watch this couple ever so gradually mature upwards as they go. I wonder how much work Buckley and Mescal had to do to achieve this, or if they just played the scenes as written, while they stacked together to build this gravellier sense of weight and adulthood. Given the flow of events that will break this couple, I think it is artistically fitting that we see the first time these two have sex, when often those scenes can feel tacked on and repetitive. And there was a point while watching this movie, where I reflected back and was really glad that we got to see Agnes as a carefree wild child, to contrast when she is happy, before this woe is set upon her. Jessie Buckley IS phenomenal. This is one of the most burdensome performances of the decade. Golly gosh, I already think her catalogue is maxed, but she’s hit the right role at the right time, making this character so rich; something to behold.
Now we get to the Hamlet in Hamnet, and apart from Agnes having to speak out her troubles at the beginning of watching the play, within this finale, something beautiful does spill about. It sounds silly to say, but I always think of characters like Gwen Stacy now, as a character designed to die. It’s a famous part in the comics, and throughout the ‘Amazing Spider-Man movies, anyone with any spidey-sense (pun intended) would know it was coming, all depending on how artistically it was accomplished. Hamnet sort’ve Uno-reverses that, to remind me that characters destined to die also once lived, especially if they were inspirations in the living world first. This movie, is based on a book that is a historical imagining, right? Among the best ones I’ve seen (Spencer ✅ Blonde, Women Talking ❌❌). To weave such a terse emotionally raw backstory to a historically established play is remarkable. Hamnet’s depths and elegant highs are remarkable. I can’t do this movie justice with words on the page, but Hamnet is excellent. I recently teared up at the love on display in Wuthering Heights, and I’m choked up again! But this pang feels more universal, surrounding the connection to people as a whole. We walk past strangers on the street, and we don’t know what they’ve gone through, or the day they’ve had. Hamlet’s crowd exists all walks of life, from beggars to noblemen, and they all reach out by the end, feeling the agony that once consumed Agnes – it’s a really powerful ending, impossible to transpose into words. Within is a reminder of the value of art, as I recall further moments I like, where Will states he’s not good with words to people but is full of good stories, which is why Agnes married him in the first place – a point so easy to forget in a crisis, I imagine.
I’m not sure I always understood what this movie was trying to say, I think partly handicapped by not holding an intimate knowledge of Hamlet, or Shakespeare’s life in general. The significance of the hole in the forest grounds – is that a movie creation or does it harken back to Hamlet in some meaningful way? And by the play, it seems it does, with the ghost always a chance of lurking in the darkened hole that leads backstage. Then there’s this movie’s witches’ angle, that starts out as a suggestion, a rumour of Agnes’ lineage, and grows stronger, but seems to fizzle out or is irrelevant by the movie’s end. And because I’m not an aficionado on the original play, I can’t say if it has been cherrypicked to fit so perfectly within this chosen narrative either, or if the reflection is seamless – I can see this really grinding my gears if I were a classic literature scholar. Other than this last point though, I can’t see why this movie only has an 87% Rotten Tomatoes score – what are the other 13% huffing?! I also don’t want to overlook the contribution of Emily Watson, who starts out as a callous bitch, but grows to respect Agnes and offers her own tribulations to the affair. A worthy player for a worthy part. As is Bodhi Rae Breathnach, who plays the pair’s oldest daughter Susanna, too. But my happiest surprise came in the credits of this movie, when I read the name Noah Jupe and had to piece together who he played; and obviously, he was the acting Hamlet in the final play. Every time I’ve seen him previously, he’s been a reliable child star, but he’s a man now. And if heavy is the head that wears the crown – I could never read Shakespear aloud growing up without fumbling – then this man makes it look natural. I’m proud of him.
4.5
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