A fictionalized account of what happened when William Shakespeare fell in love with Anne Hathaway (named Agnes in the film and the book that inspired it) and how the death of their son inspired him to write Hamlet, Chloé Zhao’s film is as tragic as anything by the Bard… but through a distinctly feminine lens. More than a romance or the study of an artist, it’s the narrative of one mother’s grief.
From the first moments of their passionate affair, a shadow looms over tortured tutor William (Paul Mescal) and Agnes (Jessie Buckley), who’s known as “the daughter of a forest witch.” Shortly after they meet, William wins over a reluctant Agnes by telling her the story of Eurydice, forever trapped in the underworld when Orpheus turned to look at her. Not long after, at their own wedding, William turns back to look at Agnes (already carrying his child), a clear portent of the hellish experience to come.
‘Hamnet’ • Focus Feature.
Agnes gives birth to their first daughter in a stunning emerald wood, surrounded by twisting vines beside a tree with a cavernous hole at its base. The baby is healthy and strong… but the darkest parts of motherhood are still waiting to claim Agnes. When she goes into labor the next time, several years later, a storm rages. Unable to go back to the forest, she howls with anguish as flood waters seep under the door. Though she manages to deliver a live son, Hamnet, an unexpected twin sister is born not breathing. At last she stirs, and it seems Agnes is safe for the moment. She promises the infant, Judith, that she’ll protect her always, casting a spell with her words.
As the children grow, there are moments of sweetness and joy; the mischievous twins play at trading places; William laughs with an angel-faced Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) as Agnes passes on ancient herbal lore to her daughters. Rosemary is for remembrance, she says, a telling reference to Ophelia’s tormented monologue in Hamlet. The dread continues to build.
‘Hamnet’ • Photo: Agata Grzybowska/Focus Feature.
At last, the inevitable moment arrives. When Hamnet dies from the plague, seemingly tricking Death into taking him instead of Judith (Olivia Lynes), William isn’t there to see his son’s final, excruciating moments (or his wife’s agony, portrayed with brutal intensity by Buckley). He doesn’t linger at home for very long afterwards, either; he’s off to stage a play in London (which, of course, ends up being Hamlet). Agnes is left to suffer the slings and arrows of her outrageous fortune alone, trapped in hell. It’s the cruelest of fates: A mother can bring life forth from the darkness, but she can’t summon it back from that same unknowable expanse. Zhao forces her characters, and us, to stare this horrible truth in the face.
William is processing his son’s loss through his work, but Agnes doesn’t know this until she sees Hamlet herself, pushing her way to the front of the stage in disbelief. What begins as rage at hearing the actors speak her son’s name transforms into an almost ecstatic mix of sorrow and catharsis as the play unfolds. When the crowd around Agnes swells with emotion, her grief becomes something larger, as big as the sky overhead when she labored in the forest. She might be in the underworld, but she’s not alone anymore.
