Shakespearean is as Shakespearean does in the lovely puzzler of a film that is Hamnet. Few films in history — if any — have managed the inspired director and co-writer Chloé Zhao ’s deft feat of connecting revisionist history, shards of Shakespearean lore, forest-y mysticism, and family life pathos, bringing Maggie O’Farrell’s famed novel to the screen with a powerfully cinematic fluidity. (O’Farrell co-wrote the screenplay with Zhao.)
Oscar-winning director Zhao pulls us so deeply and empathetically into the story and these unfolding lives — and with the uncanny mix of polish and loose-fit naturalism of her 2020 sensation Nomadland — that suspension of disbelief comes easily and swiftly and stays through to the emotionally engulfed finale in the Globe Theatre, circa the early 17th century. Reality checking comes later, and is at least partly beside the point of this enchanting storytelling exercise.
What little we know to be true of Shakespeare’s life includes the existence, and the early plague-caused death, of his young son Hamnet. Therein lies the center point from which plot lines and detours revolve, culminating in the premiere of the Bard’s masterpiece Hamlet, a heady response to parental grief.