'Hamnet': moving or manipulative?

Seeing Hamnet alone in a small Cornish town where there was no possibility of bumping into anyone I knew was the best decision I could have made. Leaving the cinema with mascara stains on my cheeks and red, puffy eyes, I was grateful for my anonymity. The final scene replayed in my mind on my aptly poetic seaside walk home and has done ever since, so much so that I think my Letterboxd four favourites needs updating.

Directed by Chloe Zhao, Hamnet is a beautifully moving adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling novel, in which she imagines William Shakespeare’s family life and the personal tragedy that may have inspired his writing of Hamlet. O’Farrell speculates that the noted absence of the plague, or pestilence, in Shakespeare’s writings can be attributed to the trauma of losing of his son, Hamnet.

As an English Literature student, I was immediately sold. But I was pleasantly surprised by that fact that, though the story is based on true events, it does not rely on them and can stand alone from its context. At its core, Hamnet is a story about a family suffering an unimaginable loss; in fact, Paul Mescal’s character is nameless until the very end of the film, and only then is he directly referred to as William Shakespeare.

Jessie Buckley’s enthralling performance as Agnes (Shakespeare’s wife, better known as Anne Hathaway) carries the tale of love, motherhood, and grief. Like many of Buckley’s characters, Agnes is inspiringly independent, outspoken and resilient, which makes her despair all the more heartbreaking.

No film has ever made me cry so much and so consistently, which, judging by the others in my showing, is a common experience among viewers. I attributed this outpouring of emotion to the power of Buckley’s performance, but others have been more sceptical. Some critics have accused Zhao’s film of emotional manipulation, even going as far as to label it ‘grief porn’. Whilst it is true that Hamnet’s themes are inevitably affecting, the loss of a child is a singularly traumatic experience, they remain rooted in reality.

Crucially, this criticism is buried beneath a mountain of rave reviews; the nominations speak for themselves. Of its six nominations, Hamnet picked up two wins at this year’s Golden Globe awards, in both the Best Picture and Best Female Actor categories. It has also found recognition in the form of eight Oscar nominations (including Best Picture and Best Director) announced earlier this week. Jessie Buckley is expected to sweep the Best Female Actor categories across awards season, yet Paul Mescal has been notably snubbed from the Best Supporting Actor category.

If I were an Academy voter, Hamnet would be at the top of my ballot.