The crying game: what Hamnet's grief-porn debate says about women, cinema and enormous hawks

"Grief-porn, in relation to cinema, would suggest that the film in question is emotionally manipulative, formulaic; grief-art would suggest the film unleashes feelings both universal and true. It's curiously circular. In a film about grief, the valorised quality is depth of feeling; it stands or falls by how profoundly the hero(ine) experiences emotion, and the audience proves its acuity, buys itself into the imaginative contract, by its ability to mirror that profundity."

"You only get to decide whether it's art if you're already feeling it so deeply that it must be, in other words. If the death left you cold and you found the ensuing emotionality manipulative and domineering, this logic is quite annoying. I'm talking in the first instance, of course, about Hamnet, the dramatisation of Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel. On paper, it must be art: Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal are more than brilliant, they both have qualities of magnetism"

"It's visually sumptuous and the dialogue is contrastingly spare and intelligent. It can't be a spoiler but if you know nothing, look away now to say that Hamnet, the only son of William Shakespeare and Agnes, nee Hathaway, died of the plague at the age of 11. The death of a child is a peerless tragedy, so any observation about the onscreen charm of the actor for instance, I didn't find him that charming, I preferred the daughters is verboten, and that's fair enough."

Porn-versus-art debates hinge on tastemaker judgments and perceived attractiveness; art status often depends on cultural gatekeepers. Grief-porn implies emotional manipulation and formulaic sentimentality, while grief-art implies truthful, universal feeling. Assessments of grief films are circular: valorised quality is depth of feeling, and viewers are permitted to call a film art only if they have already felt that depth. If a death leaves viewers cold, the film's emotionality can feel domineering. Hamnet portrays the death of Shakespeare's only son from the plague at age eleven, featuring visually sumptuous imagery, spare intelligent dialogue, and magnetic performances from Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal.

Read at www.theguardian.com