Don Reviews "Hamnet"

I will be the first to admit it: I have trouble understanding the works of Shakespear.  I totally get that he is one of the greatest writers in the history to the point where he his own number in the library Dewey Decimal System (some of you need to ask your parents or even grandparents on that one).  My issue lies in understanding the form of the language they use, which I don’t enjoy much like subtitles. I did wonder how that would go with a film like Chloe Zhao’s latest in Hamnet, where it is more about a story giving background to one of his greatest works.

Starring Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley, Emily Watson, Jacobi Jupe, Noah Jupe, El Simone, and Joe Alwyn, Shakespear (Mescal) and his wife, Agnes (Buckley), are growing their family, but when they suffer a tragic loss, it becomes the inspiration for his play about the Danish prince that could be in the top three of his most famous works.

This film is interesting in that it has it has both great positives and also negatives for me.  In its first two acts it is the basically the story leading up to how “Hamlet” came to be, but it does so VERY slowly.  Honestly, if you did not know that it was Shakespear’s story in this film, it could have been any couple from that time period.  A lot could have been cut here, especially for a film that runs almost two hours.

With that being said, the payoff really comes in the third act, where that pace helps things come comes into full circle.  The ending itself is so emotional that they handed out tissue packs to the people before the screening started.  The biggest plus for me with Hamnet comes in the performances of Mescal and Buckly, whom I can easily see Oscar nods for this film.  I can also see possible recognition for Jupe, the twelve-year-old who played the title character himself. With its plot, style, release date and the performances, this film will be a “Oscar Darling” and I will be hugely surprised if it does not get multiple nominations in many categories.  I am torn in the film that I did not like how slow the first two acts were. But I loved the performances and the third act, so I will recommend seeing this film in a weekday early bird discount showing in the theaters.