Hamnet - movie review
There are stories that draw you in like songs of a witch. You know tragedy awaits at the end, and yet you go along hypnotized by the beauty. Hamnet is such a movie where each frame is like a painting.
Synopsis of Hamnet
Hamnet, directed by Chloe Zhao, is an exploration of Shakespeare’s life and the death of his son, which inspired the play Hamlet. We follow along as Shakespeare meets his wife, Agnes, for the first time and as they fall in love. We follow along with the birth of their daughter and then the twins Hamnet and Judith, their days of summer together, the games that they play, and the funny plays they put on for their mother.
We see their dreams intermingle in this small universe as Agnes dreams of her children growing up healthy and happy; Shakespeare dreams of stories; and the little boy Hamnet dreams of playing a role in his father’s plays.
Hamnet’s passing unravels the strands of these lives, as if someone had come along and ripped the pages that house the rest of their story. Agnes explodes with grief while Shakespeare tries bottling his. Hamnet looks on from beyond the veil, and the inking of separation provides no solace. The thing that is broken keeps going away and away.
Shakespeare looks for his child as if he were just lost and looking to be found. He answers this voice in only the way he knows how.
Hamnet final thoughts: When grief is comforted
If you know the story of Hamlet, then you know that it’s about a Danish prince who learns that his uncle has murdered his father to seize the throne and marry the queen. It is the father who dies. And the boy who dreamed of being brave takes the stage. In this way, Shakespeare trades places with his son and becomes a ghostly apparition haunting his own story. He says the things that need to be expressed. For nothing more than through art, a perchance to dream.
The pain of loss is as universal as dust suspended in a sunbeam. And generation after generation we have reached for this story, hoping that we are not the only ones. Somewhere as the play goes on and the grief is comforted, I wonder if Hamnet looks back and nods.
