The first part of Hamnet shows Agnes Hathaway searching for medicinal plants in the Warwickshire forest while she carries her collected herbs to create medical treatments for her clients. The family depends on this honest yet unattractive work to survive while her husband pursues his London-based pursuit of something intangible. I performed a calculation to determine the expenses for staying in the city and the unstable nature of working as a playwright while I had three children who needed my support at home. Standard accounting principles do not support the financial reasoning which artists use to create their ambitious artistic projects.
The period film adaptation by Chloé Zhao of Maggie O'Farrell's novel demonstrates this conflict more effectively than most other historical dramas attempt to show. The town of Stratford-upon-Avon during the 1580s and 1590s exists as a workplace environment instead of a traditional heritage site. The production of gloves takes place in this location. Women need to endure childbirth without any pain relief while their child's illness forces them to spend money and disrupts their ability to sleep. The production design by Fiona Crombie creates interior spaces which have the scents of tallow and damp wool. Nothing is clean. Nothing is easy.
Jessie Buckley plays Agnes who developed the ability to detect small world signals because she needed to survive. She uses her touch to predict future events while she studies temperature-reducing plants and methods for maximizing resource usage. The supernatural element creates an uncomfortable contrast with her down-to-earth nature. Zhao continues to speak despite the situation. Agnes found protection under a tree when a Harris hawk chose to rest its body on her arm. The images produce strong effects through their attempt to show things which most people would find impossible to accept.
Paul Mescal's Shakespeare presents himself through calmness which contradicts the expectation of someone who would create the most renowned soliloquy in English literature. The story begins with him working as a Latin tutor who resides with his family while being unemployed and living with his parents. When he finally gets the words out, they come in fits. "He repeats "To be or not to be" while standing near the Thames river as the words seem to form themselves. It's a risky scene. I'm not sure it entirely works. But Mescal commits to the vulnerability of it, and that counts for something.
What the film does exceptionally is show what his absence costs. The story shows its decline through the accumulation of everyday household mistakes instead of any major dramatic events. Agnes stands alone during her time of crisis. The children growing up with a father who exists mostly as a name. The family shows its weakness when Hamnet becomes sick because he wants to defend his twin sister Judith from what he believes will happen. We understand what these people lack.
Jacobi Jupe as the boy is devastating without ever reaching for it. His death scene stands as one of the most tragic scenes in history while the following mourning period became even more devastating. Buckley responds with physical movements which resemble those of an animal. I've read that some viewers find it overwrought. Maybe. A movie which shows no interest in turning its tragic moments into beautiful scenes maintains an authentic quality.
Zhao's cinematographer Łukasz Żal shoots the Warwickshire countryside like he shot the Polish flatlands in Ida or the concentration camp gardens in The Zone of Interest. Everything is beautiful and slightly removed. Agnes makes her way to London where she watches Hamlet perform which brings her to a complete sense of closeness. She watches her dead son's name spoken by an actor. She watches her husband turn their most difficult situation into beautiful poetic iambic pentameter. The audience contains two people who are Emily Watson and Shakespeare's mother but they maintain complete silence. They don't need to.
The film makes no grand claims about artistic genius. The text shows no attempt to justify ignoring others through the process of creating a literary work. The system operates as a financial record-keeping system which serves as its primary function. Here is what was lost. Here is what was made from the loss. The current exchange rate has become extremely difficult to handle.
I left the hawk's image stuck in my thoughts as I departed. The bird species does not fit within sixteenth-century English territory because Harris hawks entered the region during the twentieth century. Zhao understands this situation yet shows no interest in it. The anachronism indicates that this presentation shows events which did not occur in historical time. The story exists as a myth which describes how grief behaves when people have time to wait and what it ravages when they lack patience.
