Hamnet: A Review - To Be or Not To Be?

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A flawed but very affecting movie that features a fantastic performance from Jessie Buckley.

Hamnet, written and directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Chloe Zhao, is a tragedy that dramatizes the life of William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes, as well as the alleged origins of the play Hamlet.

The film, which is based on the book of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell, who also co-wrote the screenplay, stars Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as the bard.

Hamnet hit select theatres here in the U.S. at the end of November and is in wide release still. I watched it over the weekend.

Let me start by saying that I am the ultimate target audience for this movie. First off, I am a classically trained actor…so I’ve done lots of Shakespeare, including playing Hamlet. And more importantly, how I got to be a classically trained actor fits perfectly into the thesis of Hamnet.

Here's the story…twenty-nine years ago my best friend, creative collaborator and overall partner-in-crime, Keith Hertell, with whom I had suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that accompany life as an artist in a cruel world, was killed in a car crash in Titusville, Florida.

At the time of his death, Keith and I were working a soul-crushing office job together, and he took a Friday off to fly down to Florida for a wedding. He never came back.

Due to a lack of talent and skill I am incapable of adequately expressing the devastation I felt, and still feel, regarding Keith’s death. He was the most unique, original, talented and magnetic person I have ever met. He was brilliant in a multitude of ways – a staggeringly gifted actor, comedian and musician. The most notable thing about Keith though was that he was unanimously adored by everyone who ever met him. He had an absurdly kind heart, a razor-sharp wit and an easy-going, disarming smile.

In the wake of Keith’s shuffling off his mortal coil and departing for the undiscovered country, from whose bourn, no traveller returns, I was absolutely inconsolable. I was disoriented, furious and depressed. I had nowhere to turn. Religion would have been somewhere for me to go but I was so angry at what God had done that I declared war on him…a foolish endeavour, no doubt, but fuck him…I had nothing to lose. It should come as no surprise that my war against God was an impulsive, ignoble cause and I was soundly defeated…although it took considerably longer than to be expected – anger is a remarkably useful fuel.

Then one day out of despair I picked up a paperback copy of Hamlet. I read it. In those pages I found a profound reflection of my own grief. It all made perfect sense to me now. Hamlet wasn’t crazy…he was grieving – which looks a lot like insanity to those outside of it.

I vividly remember riding the subway one day and being lost in my thoughts of Keith and having tears streaming down my face, and then remembering something hysterical he had done and laughing uncontrollably, and then weeping again…and then I sort of snapped out of it and noticed that everyone on the subway was staring at me like I was a lunatic – which I sort of was. My behavior on the subway that day was a perfect encapsulation of Hamlet. Grief knocks you out of the rhythm of everyday life, and you seem mad because you’re so out of sync with everyone, and everything, else.

Reading Hamlet, I found a dramatic rendition of my grief, which felt like profundity, if not solace, or at the very least understanding…which then gave me meaning and purpose. I set out from that moment on a pseudo-religious quest to learn as much as I could about Shakespeare’s work – not in an academic sense, but in an artistic one. I auditioned for a Shakespeare company, got in…then trained as much as I could…and ultimately went to London and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Pretty great experience born out of the most brutal experience imaginable.

Speaking of great experiences…or magical ones…I got to see Ralph Fiennes play Hamlet on Broadway thirty years ago…the best I’ve ever seen…then got to meet him – and his brother Joseph (of Shakespeare in Love fame), at RADA…pretty cool experience.

Which brings us to Hamnet. The thesis of the film is essentially that the play Hamlet was written in the deep throes of grief as a dramatic eulogy for Agnes and William Shakespeare’s lost child…which aligns with my experience of the play as grief personified.

The film is undeniably affecting, and boasts an emotionally powerful final twenty minutes that elicited from me guttural wails of grief, no doubt built up over a lifetime of heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.

The problem with Hamnet though, is that despite its moving final act, the film fails to fully form in its opening two acts.

The film is up and down…a walking dichotomy. For example, it is beautifully shot but poorly staged. There were multiple times where I marveled at cinematographer Lukasz Zal’s stunning work but was frustrated by a failure to provide adequate visual coverage of the dramatic events unfolding.

Another example is that the film boasts two exquisite performances from Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, but the script never develops the characters in any substantial way to have the drama they endure be anything but window dressing for the rending of garments that comes in the final act.

Speaking of the performances, Jessie Buckley, who is nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for her work as Agnes, is spectacular in the role. Agnes is a delicious character for an actress, wild and witchy, and Buckley devours her with aplomb.

Buckley is the embodiment of primal maternal energy as Agnes…mother nature incarnate. She is grounded yet ethereal, and is aggressively compelling.

In the final act it is Buckley’s Agnes that is our avatar, and we watch the dramatic events unfold on stage through her eyes and it is a truly magical and mesmerizing experience.

Paul Mescal is not given quite as captivating a character as Buckley’s Agnes, but he makes the most of his Shakespeare role and truly comes to life when he is called upon to actually recite Shakespeare’s written words.

As previously stated, I am a sucker for anything in the SCU (Shakespeare Cinematic Universe), and while I found the final act riveting and emotionally potent, I feel like Hamnet could have…and should have…been better.

Unfortunately, Hamnet never fully coalesces into the coherent cinematic masterpiece that it obviously possesses the ability to be…and that was disappointing.

That said, I still found the film very moving, and if you like Shakespeare and like to cry, then Hamnet might be for you too. Is it as good as seeing a top-notch performance of Hamlet on stage? No. But what is?

So is Hamnet to be, or not to be? The answer is that conscience makes cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment, with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action….and so it is with Hamnet.

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