The Shakespearean drama, starring Paul Mescal and Jesse Buckley, has a great cast but is “exploitative” and lacking in subtlety, “a piece of work that tugs at the heartstrings and goes for the tear ducts with absolute ruthlessness.”
There is no doubt that Hamnet will be one of the films of the year in the eyes of many. Riding a wave of enthusiastic reviews, the film is sure to land on dozens of “Best of 2025” lists and thousands of Oscar ballots. None of this is all that surprising.
The film is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s poetic novel, one of the most acclaimed bestsellers of the 21st century. Another key figure behind the camera is director and co-writer Chloé Zhao, who produced the Oscar-winning Nomadland (O’Farrell herself is another co-writer). The film features two of Ireland’s most exciting young actors, Jesse Buckley and Paul Mescal, in front of the camera. And it involves another creative genius, William Shakespeare. The conceit of the novel and film is that the tragic death of Shakespeare’s 11-year-old son, the titular Hamnet, inspired the writing of Hamlet, the greatest play in the English language. The opening caption reveals that in Elizabethan England, the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable.
But does Hamnet deliver on its promise of great talent? That’s the question. It’s true that many viewers have already fallen under its spell, but Chao and O’Farrell have stripped away much of what makes the novel magical: the time-travel structure, the hypnotic prose rhythms, the inner monologues, and the small concrete details, so what’s left is no more profound or authentic than the costume dramas of yore.
That early scene isn’t a million miles away from Shakespeare in Love (1998). Buckley plays Anne Hathaway, a farmer’s daughter known to her family as Agnes, and Mescal plays Will, the glovemaker’s son and Latin tutor. Agnes is rumored to be the daughter of a forest witch, but she makes no attempt to dispel that rumor. She spends half her time in the forest with her pet hawk, picking poultices and medicinal herbs and fungi. And to emphasize her oneness with nature, we highlight a shot that has become common over the past few years. It’s a shot where the camera points skyward through a frame of rustling treetops. Meanwhile, Will is doodling the first draft of Romeo and Juliet in his attic, and it’s clear from the opening scene that Hamnet is not going to be a subtle movie.
Buckley gives a very Buckley-esque performance. Like many of her characters, Agnes is a fierce, naive rebel, and more honest than everyone around her. Understandably nervous, Will quickly broke down and stammered, “I’d like to be squeezed in your hands.” It’s a warm and sweet romance, but not particularly believable. The newlywed Shakespeare lives an idyllic postcard life with his daughter Susanna and adorable twins Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) and Judith (Olivia Lynes). (One of the film’s conceits is that the twins look uncannily similar, so it’s a shame that the actors look nothing alike.) Stratford-upon-Avon is strangely devoid of other homes and strangers. And the contrived dialogue is interspersed with quotes from Shakespeare’s plays and descriptions of situations that everyone in the room likely already knows. Will’s father, who has been bullying Will, tells him on two separate occasions that he is worthless (and on the second occasion, Will grabs him around the jaw and slams him into a wall, similar to what Mescal did to his girlfriend’s brother in Normal People, only louder).
Source: BBC Culture – www.bbc.com
