I’ve never seen Shakespeare like he is in tragically beautiful Hamnet

Hamnet is William Shakespeare as we’ve never really seen him before – a fully-fleshed human being and playing second fiddle to his wife.

It’s one of the most eagerly anticipated titles on the film festival circuit this autumn thanks to the undeniable pedigree provided by lead actors Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao and the best-selling novel at its heart by Maggie O’Farrell, who also co-wrote the screenplay.

Oh yes, and Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes are producers.

I can’t really imagine this team creating anything other than a profoundly moving and rich piece of cinema, powered by the vulnerability of Buckley and Mescal – and that’s exactly what we get, so make sure you bring your tissues.

Hamnet is Shakespeare’s domestic life reimagined, but so true in its raw emotions that it would be all to easy to mistake it fully for historical fact. The bare bones of it are: we do know that he and wife Anne Hathaway (here called Agnes, as some historians argue) married at 18 and 26 respectively, and when they tied the knot she was already pregnant with their first child.

We also know that they had three children together: Susannah, followed by twins Hamnet and Judith, and that Hamnet tragically died aged 11 in 1596. A few years later, his father wrote Hamlet – a name often seen as interchangeable with Hamnet – one of his most acclaimed plays. Hamnet explores the idea that this was Shakespeare’s way of saying goodbye to the son he couldn’t in real life.

What Hamnet does so masterfully is tie these events together to not only bring Shakespeare’s life closer to his remarkable work, suggesting inspiration that was surely there, but also closer to Agnes.

She’s a figure little is known about, other than the fact that she stayed in Stratford-Upon-Avon with their children while Shakespeare went to London to make something of himself. In Hamnet, she’s an enchanting oddball, whispered about by folk as ‘the daughter of a forest witch’ thanks to her affinity with the natural world – she even has a pet hawk. It’s this uniqueness that draws Shakespeare, at the time a penniless Latin tutor.

There’s humour and levity in their lust-fuelled courtship, presented as intrigue (at least) at first sight, although neither family is thrilled at the match. Shakespeare struggles to prove himself as a ‘man of words’ when put on the spot by Agnes.

Throughout Hamnet, the film weaves in famous Shakespeare prose as he tries to build himself up from a failed glover whose own father dismisses him as ‘useless’ to a renowned playwright, rich enough to build the largest house in Stratford.

But it’s with varying degrees of success, such as him working on ‘But soft! What light from yonder window breaks?’ after observing Agnes through a window or reciting the beginning of ‘To be or not to be’ as he stands on a riverbank, contemplating jumping in.

The drawback of making a movie about someone who wrote some of the most famous words ever spoken is it’s difficult to make them sound anything less than resoundingly obvious. But for those less instantly recognisable quotes, they are neatly chosen and provide a smug little extra boost to any Shakespeare nerds watching.

Unsurprisingly, there are powerhouse performances from whole cast, including Emily Watson as Shakespeare’s foreboding mother and Joe Alwyn as Agnes’s kind brother Bartholomew. The Shakespeare children are also sweet and natural, with Jacobi Jupe and Olivia Lynes as the rambunctious Hamnet and Judith, and Bodhi Rae Breathnach as the more earnest Susannah.

They all build lives so convincingly together out of what there’s very little record of, even if there could be a touch more time spent on Hamnet himself.  You also do occasionally catch the whiff of prestige picture Oscar bait in the film’s ponderousness, with a few slower moving sections.

Mescal is brilliant as ever, wearing the mantle of playing Shakespeare lightly enough that there’s ample room for him to become a real man, and one who’s imperfect and struggles. Is the sort of part Mescal is born to play and born to shine doing so.

But Hamnet truly belongs to the magnificent Buckley, as Agnes struggles with the wedge driven between her and her husband by their son’s death. It’s her taking centre stage with her startingly raw performance of grief.

Here is a woman who loves strongly enough to will her daughter back to life – twice – but was unable to do the same for her son. Her scream of primal pain at that realisation is the most affecting part of a performance that is not only career-defining for the accomplished Buckley, but one we’ll still be talking about well beyond the Oscars.

Hamnet screened as part of the BFI London Film Festival on October 11, 13, 17 and 19. It’s set for release in the US on November 27 and in the UK on January 9.

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