The first time that we see Jessie Buckley’s Agnes in Chloé Zhao’s stunning Hamnet, she is laying under the safety of a large tree in the woods. Her eyes are closed and we imagine the ground ready to cradle her into its moss and tangled branches–Mother Earth distinctly prepared to take care of one of her children. Zhao’s film left the audience at the world premiere in Telluride with a strong impression with sounds of sniffles and crying audibly heard throughout its second half. Hamnet is intimate, powerful, and features two emotionally frayed performances from Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal.
Agnes meets Mescal’s William Shakespeare before he is The Bard. He is teaching classes to small groups of children when he sees her emerging from the woods with a hawk on her arm. Who wouldn’t be enchanted? She beguiles him instantly, and there are a few moments where we see Mescal’s Will unable to find his words whenever he is around Agnes. Both parents disapprove of their eventual union (Will’s father is particularly abusive), but this is the kind of love that suggests that you can run away into the woods to start a life together away from prying, judgemental eyes. The way that Buckley and Mescal look at each other is magical.
When Agnes and Will begin to have a family, they chart their own course. She is supportive of his writing, but she thinks that he needs to get away from the overwhelming shadow of his father and encourages him to go to London. She gives birth to their first child in the woods, and it almost feels like the ground beneath her is breathing into her. Cinematographer Łukasz Żal places the camera high up in several moments, and there is an unforgettable shot where Agnes, in a deep red dress, screams up into the sky as greens and browns flood the frame.
Based on the 2020 Maggie O’Farrell novel fictionalizing the death of Agnes and Will’s only son in 1596, Zhao guides us gently even though we know what is around the corner. The scenes of Will teaching Hamnet how to sowrdfight as his wife and two other children look on are bursting with feverish joy. Has a family ever been this complete and happy?
There are many doorways and thresholds in both the real world and on the stages of the plays Will writes. The black archways are almost enticing for how it invites the possibility of the unknown, but stepping over that line and bidding farewell looms over so much of Zhao’s film. Will and Agnes’ life is shattered by the loss of their only son, Hamnet, a cherubic, sweet boy who looks to his father with such adoration that your heart cannot help but melt. Jacobi Jupe’s eyes flicker with a youthful exuberance but there way he looks at both of his parents is deeply emotional.
Moments after tragedy strikes, you can feel the air being squeezed from Buckley’s lungs. During her courtship and in the early moments of her marriage, she is a woman who is seemingly impossible to pin down, but how she loves as a mother soothes her. Buckley’s face simply lights up in the interactions with her children. That grief, though, is something that her body is unfamiliar with and unprepared for. Will can physically distance himself from the loss of his son by distracting himself with work in dark, depressing London. Buckley and Mescal deliver towering performances that you will not be able to shake. The last twenty minutes almost no dialogue is spoken between them, but it is some of the most affecting, palpable work you will see this year.
We begin Hamnet connected to the earth, the dirt fresh on our skin and the wind trailing our hair. Words cannot always convey such sudden, immeasurable loss, so perhaps we need to have touch be our guide. Zhao’s film is one of the best of the year. You will never forget it.
Hamnet is in theaters this Thanksgiving.
