Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | September 9, 2025
Chloe Zhao exploded onto the indie scene with lived-in stories of life in the American margins, where non-professional actors and natural lighting brought an aching realness to the forefront. It won her an Oscar, making her the first woman of colour to win Best Director with Nomadland. After her dip into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she is back on surer ground but she hasn’t abandoned the more conventional trappings of Hollywood filmmaking. She’s simply applied them to her own style and refined them for this adaptation of the novel by Maggie O’Farrell. And it’s paid off marvelously.
Agnes (Jessie Buckley) is a free spirit whose connection to the natural world has left her with a sordid reputation as the daughter of a witch. To William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), the son of a glover who feels stuck in his life under the thumb of his abusive father, she is a rejuvenating addition to his world. they wed, welcome three children, and William heads off to London to fulfill his dreams of becoming a writer. Theirs is a life of seeming bliss. But Agnes has always had visions that, on her death bed, she would be watched over by only two children …
O’Farrell’s novel, which was a major bestseller in the UK and won a slew of awards, is a lush and interior imagining of the lives of the bard’s family, one full of emotional depth and evocative descriptions of nature. It seems like a good fit for Zhao, whose works are intensely connected to the natural world and the humans who make their stamp on it, however temporarily. In The Rider, she largely eschewed dialogue in favour of letting the vast plains of South Dakota evoke the themes of loss and revival. Hamnet is probably her most verbose non-Marvel work but Zhao still leaves plenty of space for Agnes and Will’s internal lives to feel as vivid as their exterior ones.
This is not a biopic or historical drama that claims to tell the true story of the Shakespeare family. Scholars and nerds will note the changes, although it certainly feels like both Zhao and O’Farrell, who has a co-screenwriter credit here, are more concerned with capturing a potential truth of their lives that was never documented. The film spends a lot of time with Agnes and Will, from their first meeting to their rushed courtship and marriage, right through to the birth of twins Judith and Hamnet. Both Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, two of our finest purveyors of the devastating micro-expression, are excellent here. Their chemistry is on point, evolving from first fascination to the comfort of husband and wife. It is Buckley in particular who makes this film work. She sells Agnes’s connection to the natural world, even if her dialogue gets a bit woo-woo. Her tenacity and savviness are immensely appealing and her loss of them when she experiences the ultimate grief is palpable.
Really, it’s Buckley who helps to carry this film through its weaker points. Hamnet doesn’t spend as much time with the eponymous character as it needs to. So much more screentime is given to Agnes and Will’s courtship, and the kids end up feeling a bit like an afterthought, even though it is his death, so brutal and painful, that upends their lives. Young Jacobi Jupe is excellent as Hamnet — this is a film with great child actors, it must be said — and Zhao’s deceptively simple depiction of the otherworld, like the set of a play, is impressive. But the lopsided nature of this narrative divide does somewhat weaken its middle act. We want to know more of Hamnet and his little life before it is wrenched so horrifically from us.
What pulls it all together is one of the best endings I’ve seen in a while. The play’s the thing, you see, and Buckley is our focus as she is given the opportunity to see how her husband has transformed his grief into art. It’s on Buckley’s shoulders to sell the idea of creativity as the ultimate good of humanity in its darkest moments and she does it. Talk about a staggering achievement. The use of Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight” as the musical accompaniment is a bit too on the nose but you can’t really begrudge it when it leaves you in tears. I certainly cried. So did a chunk of the critics at the TIFF press screening.
There are faults here. I wish Zhao had trusted her instincts and been brave enough to cut out some dialogue. There really should be more Hamnet in Hamnet. But I cannot pretend that I wasn’t emotionally overwhelmed by it all, and that I wasn’t utterly taken with how those final ten minutes proved so devastating. It is grief and hope manifest. Hell, I’m crying now just writing about it. Historical accuracy be damned: this is the memory that the Shakespeares deserve.
Hamnet had its Canadian premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. It will be released in theatres on November 27th.
