Hamnet

Hamnet (2025) is a film about Shakespeare that is not Shakespeare's film. It is adapted from Maggie O'Farrell's novel and its starting point is a few lines in the record: Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet who died at eleven. A few years later his father wrote Hamlet. The two names were used interchangeably at the time. The novel fills that gap and puts the mother at the centre rather than the father. Agnes works with herbs in the countryside and has strong instincts. Her husband works in the theatre in London and is almost never at home. The real subject is grief working differently in two people. Agnes carries the loss in her body; he turns it into writing, and neither understands the other. The scene where she watches her husband's play for the first time carries the entire film. Chloé Zhao wrote the screenplay with O'Farrell. Her known register, natural light and wide open ground, continues here; sixteenth century England is not a period backdrop but muddy and cold. Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal do the best work of their careers. It premiered at Telluride and became one of the most discussed films of the awards season. It runs 125 minutes. Good for: period drama, literary adaptation, and films about grief. Less good for: the death of a child is the central subject, the pace is slow, and the film never offers relief.