Hamnet (2025)

Haunting, propulsive, and emotional, to me Hamnet is about the ubiquity of tragedy, how powerless it makes us feel no matter the form it takes, and how it both unites and divides us. I fell and sprained my ankle on my way back from this film, but I think it was still worth it. 

The story of how Hamnet dies really is nothing special -- medieval child dies medieval plague -- happens to almost every family of their time. Chloe Zhao did a lot of interesting things to dramatize this everyday tragedy, sometimes to a comical degree. Shakespeare's inexplicable bouts of fits and emotional outbursts were hard to watch. At the same time, the actual sensational death of Hamlet the Danish Prince was rendered as still as possible as a literal play. One nearly killed her, while the other gave her life. 

On brand for Zhao, the cinematography is amazing. All the shots of Agnes in the woods; the way every symmetrical image becomes just slightly but definitively asymmetrical and unstable after the death of Hamnet. Absolute fantastic use of lighting to tell the story. 

I do wonder what it's like to be married to the greatest literary genius of a millennia and not being aware of it in the slightest until your husband writes the the death of your son into the greatest play of all time. Then again, Agnes is the kind of bad bitch that demands to give birth to her children alone in the woods, so I doubt I will never come close to knowing what it's like to be her. Oh well.