Hamnet

Or: To Tell My Story

There is something wonderfully unsettling at the fringes Chloe Zhau’s Hamnet. You can feel it in the rising wind that shakes the trees, in the fall of shadow across a London courtyard, or the odd angle where the camera sits. Some presence is being conjured, not sinister but not entirely benevolent either. It snags and holds a viewer through this patient adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel and sets the tone for a slice of life, tinged by the inexplicable and, in the truest sense, awesome.

A practical witchyness surround Agnes (Jessie Buckley) an independent woman in tudor England. We first spy her curled in the roots of a great tree “like a dropped acorn” in the words of her suitor and later husband Will (Paul Mescal). Out of step with their societies, the pair latch on to each other and form a bond out of synch with their societies but strong and evergreen, through the cycle of years and parenthood. But what we well know is they are hurtling towards a tragedy that will indelibly mark the world.

While the initial instinct would be to make such an eldritch woman as Agnes into an otherworldly, etherial figure Buckely’s character seems more real than anyone else on screen. A truly magnetic performance, her Agnes remains untouched by the regimented world of Elizabethan England, sure of a truer path for herself and those she loves. Alas that even such peerless self-possession cannot protect someone against the ravages of the world. Mescal, as the immortal bard, is tongue tied around her, stopped with love or frustration or grief it seems only natural that his poetry should so express what he himself cannot. Neither pig-headed nor proud his struggles to connect with his wife are honest and heartfelt.

The rest of the cast is packed full with businesslike, unshowy but excellent performances like Emily Watson’s pious mother Mary Shakespeare or Joe Alwyn as Agnes’s loving brother Bartholomew. The real surprise wonders are the three children: Bodhi Rae Breathnach as Susanna, Oliva Lynes as Judith and Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet. All three give the kind of performances you pray for, earnest and deep. Jupe especially is heartbreaking in his sincerity and focus.

Hamnet sinks its teeth into you in the best possible sense. It’s story works with steady patience though everyday matters, while all the time it is growing something wonderful that will shake its audience’s heart. The last moments punch straight through tragedy and out the other side, into a moment of profound hope and peace, an tour deforce for all involved, writer and director cast and crew. It’s the kind of thing you go to the movies for, to feel all at once and forever.