The fictional story of Chloé Zhao‘s Hamnet has emotionally affected many viewers. Justin Chang, New Yorker, sets it up: “The premise of the film—and of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same title, published in 2020—is that, after his son’s death, in 1596, Shakespeare wrote ‘Hamlet’ in a burst of raw, unexpurgated grief.” While this is happening, wife Agnes undergoes her own agonizing process.
The trailer, featuring stars Paul Mescal as William and Jessie Buckley (well-deserved winner of this year’s Best Actress Oscar) as Agnes, can be seen below:
Below are snippets of selected reviews that describe key grief elements of Hamnet.
The Couple’s Differences Regarding Grief
Kristen Lopez, The Film Maven: “Agnes’s grief is overt while Will retreats inward.”
Austin Daniel, Scriptophile: “If anything, [William] has an even rougher time dealing with his grief, bottling it up and not showing it to others as he attempts to shove it aside and not deal with it. The film finds fault in both Agnes AND William’s respective approaches to grief, but it does not cast judgment upon either of them…”
That Powerful Ending That Finally Brings Them Together
Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times: “We all process loss differently, and it’s nearly the end of the movie when we learn how William has done so: not through life — he can’t bring himself to do so — but through art, finding a way to let his beloved boy live again. The last moments of ‘Hamnet’ are transcendent, and perhaps the most moving thing I’ve seen on screen this year. Agnes, her face lit by love, reaches out through a magic wall; you feel certain that, on the other side, a small hand is clasping it.”
David Ehrlich, IndieWire: “Will’s agony takes brilliant and uncontrollable new shape on the stage of the theater, while Agnes’ heartache is given the conduit it so urgently needs by virtue of how she projects her own pain onto the performance.”
Jesse Hassenger, AVClub: “The uncertain and the undeniable come together in a stunning final act of communication that feels more like communion. In traditional terms, it could simply be described as a tearjerker. Like Buckley’s performance, though, it’s richer than that, a cross between an out-of-body experience and a full-body sob…”
How Hamnet Compares to Grief Therapy
Charlotte Cripps, The Independent: “Hamnet is increasingly being used as a vehicle through which people can connect with feelings that might otherwise take years to access in talking therapy. In a world full of anxiety over what we cannot control, and grief for what we feel we are losing, are we now using the film as a collective bonding exercise in catharsis? Has Hamnet become an epic communal therapy session?”
Elisabeth J. LaMotte, LICSW, Psychology Today (“In Hamnet, Grief Isolates and Art Connects”):
…This is what great art does. It metabolizes sorrow. Never perfectly, but with such force. For the artist, it transforms raw pain into structure. For the audience, it offers recognition. We see ourselves reflected in someone else’s story, and in that reflection, we feel less alone.
In therapy, we try to do something similar. We help people give shape to what feels formless. We help grieving clients externalize what has been sealed inside. Watching Hamnet, I was struck by how powerfully Zhao’s film captures this process; not as grand catharsis, but as potent recognition.
