Hamnet (2025)

Chloé Zhao is a master at translating a book into a movie. I was very impressed with her adaptation of Nomadland and this is even more impressive. Maggie O'Farrell's book comes to life in this movie in a in a beautiful and cinematic way. I don't often say this but while I loved the book the movie was more emotionally on target. In addition to being a visually stunning, emotionally devastating movie it is also a deeply sensorial exploration of grief, anchored by exceptional performances from Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal. This is the story of William Shakespeare at home. This comes from a work of fiction but attempts to explain both Shakespeare's attraction to a woman who is uneducated as well as to hypothesize the egis for his one of his greatest plays. Agnes, is the daughter of a forest witch, and her connection to the earth, the trees, and the sky feels tangible and powerful. She meets Will --who will eventually turn out to be The Bard—their connection feels just as alive and free. They frolic and flirt joyfully, and the qualities that make her an outcast to everyone else make her wonderful to him. In no time, they’re married, then have a daughter named Susanna, and then twins: a boy and a girl, Hamnet and Judith. They have a blissful home life when Shakespeare is home and this is shattered when Hamnet dies. The grief that they that he experiences leads to the tragic play Hamlet.