Hamnet

Grade: C

Chloé Zhao’s directing style is like Terrence Malick without the lofty, philosophical, pontificating voice-overs. Her movies have a way of lulling you with their stillness. It worked extremely well in Nomadland, but with Hamnet, it so often comes across as bland. The movie, based on the novel of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell, is 75% an old-timey period drama about a poor family (think Little House on the Prairie or Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) – and 25% a mildly interesting William Shakespeare fan fiction that isn’t given space to get off the ground. The majority of the airtime doesn’t go to the aspect that I wanted explored the most.

It could be Shakespeare in Love with the script flipped, to show us, here, how tragedy in his life served as the inspiration for his darker works. The man we come to know as William Shakespeare is introduced to us as Will, played by Paul Mescal. Will is a Latin tutor, who takes a liking to the farmer’s oldest daughter Agnes (Jessie Buckley). Their courtship is surprisingly quick, bold, and forthright – and it’s not long until Agnes is with child, and they have a “hurry up” wedding. When all is said and done, they have three children: Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith. Agnes, sensing Will’s increasing melancholy in this small town, convinces him to go to London, where he can start up an acting troupe to put on his plays. Maybe he can even construct a globe-like performing arts venue. I wonder how that would go over.

The film’s best performance comes from young actor Jacobi Jupe as the title character. He has the diction, facial expressions, dramatic levels, and a grasp of the text that is better than what I’ve seen from some much older, seasoned, award-winning pros in the business. He is fabulous. I like the two leads very much. Mescal carries one of my favorite scenes. Agnes asks Will to “tell me a story. A story that moves you.” Mescal regales her with the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. He paints the picture better than any interpretive cutaways or flashbacks possibly could have. It’s one of the few bursts of life in what is otherwise a grab bag of 1500s poor family cliches.

Buckley is one of my favorite actresses working today. She has many heavy moments that were difficult to watch, and not just because most of the movie is so dull. For such a grounded, down-to-earth film taking place in nature, the score is composed by Max Richter, who has been the musical hand behind a few sci-fi/space movies (Spaceman, Ad Astra, Arrival). I liked those films, and I liked what he did there, but here, it’s distracting and derivative. In a scene where Mescal’s Will is contemplating whether or not he should be, a piano theme plays that shares notes with the intro to “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” I was about to start singing “Turn around…”

The last 15 minutes sees Agnes at the Globe, elbows on the stage, as she attends a performance of Hamlet. It’s poignant for her to watch the product of some of their real-life experiences. I appreciated that we got some time devoted to the nuts and bolts of the Bard’s process, but by then, it’s too little too late. I wasn’t as taken in by it as the characters, and certainly not to the degree the filmmakers wanted me to be. Hamnet seems to think awfully highly of itself, but I found it boring and insipid. It’s not a story that moved me.

Grade: C