Hamnet: Shakespeare in Loss

Can art heal? Can shared grief be bear­able? Hamnet tells us it is, as the movie ends with Hamlet dying on stage, his hands reaching out to the audience. Chloe Zhao takes the viewer down the long road of mourning a child, through the forest where Agnes was born, through the sounds of trees rustling and the scratching of pen on paper.

 It begins with William Shakespeare marrying Agnes. When they lose their child, Hamnet, to the plague, William channels his emotions into a play, Hamlet, while Agnes (an extraor­dinary Jessie Buckley) is in despair, still tak­ing care of her children. Pay attention to your dreams, she tells them, they will guide you. So it is with her brilliant husband who pours his pain and rage into his words. All that lives must die, we know. Zhao builds up the ten­sion till the exquisite ending but it is Buckley’s face that haunts the viewer. She anchors and raises up Hamnet, and reminds us of what we can’t take for granted.