Chloe Zhao made waves in 2021 when she became just the second female director to take home the best director award at the Oscars. Her follow up Eternals was a big step up in terms of production but wound up being one of the biggest disappointments in the Marvel universe. After a few years away she's back, this time with an adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's magnificent novel Hamnet.
Hamnet delivers a fictionalized account of what are essentially the events leading up to Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. Rather than present it as a biographical piece about William Shakespeare though, the novel and film focus the story more on his wife Agnes and her grief at the passing of their son Hamnet. It's a fascinating approach to the subject that wowed me when I read O'Farrell's novel, and it was damn near as crushing seeing it on the big screen.
Agnes is played by one of my favourite actors working today, Jessie Buckley. I've loved her in damn near everything but this is easily her crowning achievement. Agnes is a character that has an almost whimsical nature to her, someone tied deeply to the natural and spiritual world. By holding their hand a certain way she can seemingly learn all she needs to about someone, and Buckley nails that whimsy. However the bigger part of this role is the grief, and my god is she ever crushing to watch. A performance like this could easily go too far off the deep end and feel over the top, but Buckley delivers a performance that perfectly balances that visceral intensity of pain and sadness with the more quiet hurting where you struggle to let the emotions come out. We really get to see the whole spectrum of emotion with her performance and I was just astounded.
In what seems to be surprising many as a supporting role is Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare. It's pretty much impossible to top Aftersun in my opinion but he comes close here. He plays a version of Shakespeare torn between his family and his life in the city working with the theatre to provide for everyone, and after losing Hamnet works through his grief with his writing. With him we see a lot more of that sadness boiling under the surface, but when he does let the emotions loose it punches you in the gut just as much as Buckley. This film also wouldn't work without someone great as the titular Hamnet, and newcomer Jacobi Jupe is marvellous. This is the best child performance I've seen in some time, instantly endearing you to his character through the clear love he has for his parents and his sisters. I won't go too in depth with the specifics of his performance, but his character is obviously so crucial to the story and he was amazing. It also helps push forward the ideas of the story that his older brother Noah Jupe is the one that plays Hamlet in the stage version of the play we get some glimpses of.
The supporting cast don't have nearly as much time to shine but they're all great. I wish we got a bit more Joe Alwyn but I thought he was great, and while Emily Watson is mostly relegated to the background I thought she carried some moments really well. I also have to throw praise on the other two child performers, as both Bodhi Rae Breathnach and Olivia Lynes are wonderful as Hamnet's sisters.
Throughout her career Chloe Zhao has had a clear ability to make something beautiful out of the mundane. Here though she gets to use the English countryside as the main setting and the results are quite possibly the best looking film of the year. She's never afraid to bring the camera close or hold on a powerful moment, but the way she captures the landscapes and greenery are just stunning. I also adored how her and DP Lukasz Zal framed a lot of scenes especially when we get to the playhouse later in the film. All the visual beauty is only aided by one of the best musicians in the game Max Richter. His song 'On the Nature of Daylight' comes in late to ensure anyone not already crying will at least start welling up, but his original work for the rest of the film is just as good. This feels almost like a fantasy with how beautiful everything is.
If there's one area I wish for more from, it's the script I suppose. I loved everything about it I just wanted a bit more. It's already a pretty long movie but there are threads I know from the book that I just wish were a bit more stretched out. That's really all I have to say in terms of complaints though, if you even call it that. This is a masterclass from pretty much everyone involved and I'm thrilled that it seems like it'll be a big player come awards season. 4.5/5
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