Hamnet | Film Review

 

When William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) lose their son Hamnet, Shakespeare is inspired to write his classic tragedy 'Hamlet'.

This is one of the Best Picture nominees that I heard the most people talking about. Grief is always an interesting topic to explore, so I was looking forward to seeing this.

I found the film quite average, which was so disappointing because I thought I'd love it.

The actors are the best thing about the film. Mescal and Buckley work really well together, and all of the child actors were so great. All of the performances feel really authentic.

That being said, most of the supporting cast were underutilised. As much as this is a story about one family, it would have been interesting to see more from the people around them.

I found the pacing odd. Every scene, and by extension the entire movie, felt almost double the time it actually was, and some scenes felt particularly slow. And when it did decide to speed up, it then slowed right back down.

And with the pacing, the timing of events was also odd. I wanted a bit more time with Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) before his death, I wanted to see more of him with his parents (although I did absolutely love the sibling relationship), and I wanted a bit more of Shakespeare and Agnes's courtship.

The locations are stunning, and the film is beautifully shot.

While the portrayal of grief was interesting, it wasn't as powerful as I wanted or expected it to be. I didn't feel the loss as deeply as I needed to and felt quite distanced from it, as much as I felt distanced from the characters themselves.

To me the entire film felt like peeking through the window of someone's life, rather than living it alongside them. I wasn't hit by the emotions they felt.

And for me that's why I didn't love the film. I appreciate what it was, I was interested in how they portrayed the grief, and particularly the mother-child relationship, but that's as much as I got from it.

Overall, this film is worth watching, but it didn't grab me as deeply as I wanted it to.

6/10