Hamnet

He died in agony, and you weren’t here. I’m basically unable to cry in public, so such heavy feelings often build up and then explode in private. While sitting in the cinema, I could feel how this movie pulled me down in so many different ways, so when I drove home (it takes about 45 minutes) it all exploded. I had to stop at an empty parking lot in the forest and cried for fifteen minutes straight. This was the best movie of the year and it’s still keeping me awake, but it destroyed me in such a painful way. I love Shakespeare’s tragedy and have read it at least a dozen times and seen four different stage adaptations, but I’m confident I won’t be able to read or watch it again the way I did until today. To be honest, I’m scared of what this will do to me when I eventually return to Hamlet. The performances of the cast* are outstanding, and Mescal, whom I was really worried about after Gladiator 2, rehabilitates himself and delivers the best performance I’ve seen in a long time. Jessie Buckley does the same; I only knew her from Chernobyl and the crazy bad Dolittle (2020), so both should be contenders for the Oscars. The emotional and psychological depth of the characters and the effects on the story are what makes this film so intense. Tbf, I hadn’t read the novel before and tbh didn’t even knew it existed (but I ordered it immediately), so I can’t say how much of this comes directly from the source material. Even so, the way the actors bring these emotions to life is devastating, slowly but relentlessly wearing the audience down. I’m confident that everyone in the cinema felt the heavy pressure of what was unfolding on screen. The visual style, camera work, and cinematography are top-tier and may be the most memorable of the year, alongside Nosferatu. I’ve seen Nosferatu six times, each time in a different constellation and with different people, because I love it so much. I admire this film (after watching it once, I might even admire it more than Nosferatu) but it will take a lot to make me watch it again. Despite all its greatness, it genuinely scares me how much it made me feel; but maybe that is the film’s greatest achievement: pushing me beyond my emotional limits, making me feel too much. Soundtrack *especially Jacobi Jupe; despite being only twelve years old, his performance stands on equal footing with the rest of the cast