"Agnes Hathaway, the elusive heroine of the director Chloé Zhao's new film, Hamnet, seems happiest when in nature: retreating to the woods as often as she can, collecting mushrooms, tucking into tree hollows to sleep. She spends so much time outdoors that rumor spreads across her English village about her mother being a witch. It's a believable claim; Agnes, as played by the actress Jessie Buckley, is raw, brooding, and fundamentally enigmatic."
"When Agnes meets him, Shakespeare (played by Paul Mescal) is a similarly wayward creature in Stratford-upon-Avon. He's soon beguiled by her, unaware that she's the woman he'll go on to marry and have three children with. As historical fiction, Hamnet has little else to work off: Archival records reveal only the basic facts about their relationship. Shakespeare married Agnes, also known as Anne, in 1582, when he was 18 years old and she 26."
"They had three children, first a daughter and then boy-and-girl twins; their son, Hamnet, died in 1596 of unknown causes. The movie draws on the writer Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel, a speculative work that imagines the grief Shakespeare and his wife felt after losing their son. O'Farrell's story is based upon a theory that the play Hamlet is a reflection of that grief-a secret poured into maybe the most famous dramatic work ever written."
"Read: The stubborn myth of the literary genius Zhao's adaptation, at its best, embraces the unknowability of this premise. An epigraph offers an observation from Shakespeare's time-that the names Hamnet and Hamlet were considered interchangeable. From there, Hamnet embraces the poetry of that spooky coincidence. Zhao depicts Shakespeare as a moody auteur. His wife, by contrast, is a free spirit somewhat tempered by love, marriage, parenthood, and ultimately woe. Lots and lots of woe."
Agnes Hathaway inhabits the natural world, gathering mushrooms and sleeping in tree hollows, prompting village rumors that her mother is a witch. She is portrayed as raw, brooding, and enigmatic. William Shakespeare arrives as a wayward suitor in Stratford-upon-Avon, becomes beguiled by Agnes, marries her, and fathers three children. Their son Hamnet dies in 1596, and the film meditates on the couple's ensuing grief. An epigraph notes that Hamnet and Hamlet were once interchangeable names, and the film leans into that poetic coincidence while contrasting Shakespeare's moodiness with Agnes's free-spirited sorrow.
Read at The Atlantic
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