“Love is begun by time, and time qualifies the spark and fire of it.”
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 7
In writer-director Chloé Zhao’s heartbreaking new film, love is transformed twice, first by grief and then by art. It’s an exquisite conceit, thoughtfully realized and superbly acted.
Zhao co-wrote the screenplay with Maggie O’Farrell, the author of the 2020 bestseller, Hamnet, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. They give us a decidedly feminist view of the relationship and household of Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare. In fact, he simply goes by “husband” and “father” in the novel. Here, he assumes a largely secondary role to his wife.
The Irish actress Jessie Buckley, an Academy Award nominee for The Lost Daughter, gives the finest performance of her already impressive career. As Agnes–the name was interchangeable with Anne in the Elizabethan period–she demonstrates remarkable range, fortitude and charisma. Her earthy character expresses empathy for the natural world in an almost mystical way. She practices falconry, endures intimidation, embraces family and speaks her mind.
Along comes the young Latin tutor, Will Shakespeare, as portrayed by Irish actor Paul Mescal, an Oscar nominee for Aftersun. Eight years younger than Agnes, his character seduces her with words, stories, patience and gentle humor. He loves her. He admires her. He impregnates her. His family, he tells her, “has no talent for waiting.” So begins a complex, tragic journey.
Zhao, who claimed the Academy Award for Best Director for Nomadland (2020), allows this tale to play out in measured fashion. Scenes are permitted to breathe. Details are introduced in ways that make both narrative and emotional sense. Additional relationships are incorporated that enrich the story and deepen our investment in the central characters.
Enter Emily Watson as Mary Shakespeare, Will’s mother. Watson has pursued a highly respected career on stage and screen impersonating strong, willful women, twice earning Oscar nominations for Best Actress: Breaking the Waves (1996) and Hilary and Jackie (1998), in which she portrayed the legendary British cellist Jacqueline du Pré. In Hamnet, she’s the mother-in-law who becomes the ally, confidante and maternal presence to Agnes. Even in moments without dialogue, the two women reveal a powerful and surprising bond. Mary, like her husband, had not initially approved of their son’s choice of a spouse.
While Agnes tends to the children–the oldest daughter, Susanna, and the twins Hamnet and Judith–Will spends an increasing amount of time away from hearth and home, plying his art in London and penning letters in sonnet form. Importantly, the movie barely goes there with him, until the final act. After all, the heart of the story lies in Stratford-upon-Avon.
As the film’s title would suggest, the children are not incidental to the plot. Will, estranged from his volatile and abusive father, spends quality time with his own son whenever he can. They engage in word play and swordplay, using wooden replicas. They share a special, rhythmic father-and-son gesture. “Be brave,” Will tells the boy. As Hamnet, Jacobi Jupe gives an excellent, unaffected performance, with Bodhi Rae Breathnach (Susanna) and Olivia Lynes (Judith) also acquitting themselves well. Given the intensity of the emotions, their work as child actors seems even more impressive here.
Zhao and Polish cinematographer Lukasz Zal (The Zone of Interest) have invested this digitally-shot period piece with a wealth of earth tones and rich, dark hues, using natural light to bathe the interior scenes. Ironically, this late sixteenth-century narrative often suggests the look and feel of Thomas Hardy’s gritty, naturalistic–sometimes fatalistic–stories of the late nineteenth century. Likewise, Max Richter’s score transcends time and genre. He utilizes the basic components of Elizabethan music, but blends them with electronic elements and women’s voices to reflect the film’s psychology and modern relevance.
At the outset, when Agnes proposes that Will tell her a story that moves him, he relates the myth of Orpheus and Euridice–a tale of a man consigned to painful regret after failing to rescue his wife from the torment of the underworld. Zhao and O’Farrell use it to introduce the themes of their own neo-Shakespearean fiction: a marriage under stress from physical separation, imploding after the death of a child; a wife and mother, desperate and inconsolable; a husband, father and storyteller, grappling for the right words; and a timeless play borne of personal tragedy.
The climactic scene of Hamnet, staged at a replica of the Globe Theatre in London, brings all of these plot threads together in a thoroughly artful and wonderfully expressive way. Zhao gives us memorable images, including an astonishing overhead shot, even as the real-life brother of one of the main actors “struts and frets…upon the stage” (to borrow from a different Shakespeare play). Love, loss, grief, guilt, family, observers. All are transformed in one of the year’s best films.
