Hamnet
To love, or not to love this film, That is the question.
This film was unlike any of my first impressions. I was under the impression this was going to follow the coattails of lazy, uninspired biopics which are basically rehashed Wikipedia pages. But I was completely wrong. This story, even when Shakespeare is the deuteragonist, has nothing to do with the chronicle of Shakespeare's life. And it has everything to do with the universal human experience of love. The way each actor in this story is able to depict such inconsolable anguish in a single shot is incredible (shoutout Jessie Buckley). Its a story of love and loss that transcends time itself.
This film also came with plenty surprises for both my parents and I when I watched this with them. As someone who has read Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet in high school, it was surreal to connect these thematic dots I had in my mind for what Shakespeare was thinking during the time of writing these plays. At least, in the context of what occurs in this film, since it is historical fiction. I won't spoil exactly what I found, for either the movie or the plays, as I believe it is so much more valuable to find for yourself if you have not already. But it is emotionally beautiful and satisfying. The person who probably had the most personal reaction to this film was my mother. Which is not something I had quite expected. My mother went through a heavy amount of loss in her own life, similar in the ways Agnes was depicted. It was the raw, rich emotion of a mother's grief that felt like it was slamming its way out of my TV screen. It is from that perspective which Agnes is not just the mother of Hamnet, nor just the wife of Shakespeare but she also represents every mother that has ever existed or will exist.
The most beautiful performance from Jessie Buckley has to be in the very end. Because in the end she realizes that her crazy, absent husband Will is not so crazy nor absent from their shared trauma after all. And in fact, for hundreds, maybe thousands of years in the future people will continue to mourn the loss of their child Hamnet though the lens of Hamlet.
Will watch again.