Yashika Begwani reflects on Hamnet, where Chloé Zhao reimagines Shakespeare through Agnes, the grieving mother, exploring love, loss, creativity and the unseen feminine force behind genius and literature’s most mythologised man in this lyrical reflection.
How did the death of their son, Hamnet, affect his father?

So much so that he immortalised the son with his play, Hamlet. But wait, what did this agony bring to the mother?
A solid, strong, enchanting, pain-struck woman, written by a woman, Maggie O'Farrell, directed by another woman, Chloé Zhao, and played with gut-wrenching honesty by Jesse Buckley.

There are some frames from the film Hamnet (based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same name) that you might not forget for a long time.
Imagine Sachin Tendulkar.
No. The partner alongside Sachin.
What role does his wife play in his becoming? Or Shah Rukh Khan. Or the unseen emotional architecture behind Lata Mangeshkar.
Or better still, in this case, let's take the best of all ages... Shakespeare.
We rarely ask what scaffolding sustains greatness.

You've known literature. You're in awe. Or if you aren't yourself, perhaps reading prose in school or theatre may have thrust upon you the idea of the beloved, immortal Bard!

But who was the human behind this legendary figure we know? It's beautiful how Chloé Zhao humanises this man with so much nuance and with a strong feminist gaze, that he is never addressed as William Shakespeare until almost the end of the film. He’s just the tutor… or the lover… or the father…

But this film Hamnet is not about him alone. It's not about the young boy Hamnet either, who died young, leaving a grieving mother and an agonised father. Shakespeare finds solace in his art in writing, and so all his feelings as a father, all his emotions, are packed into a fantasy drama world as he goes on to immortalise his son through his play, Hamlet.
This film, though, never bothers to make those the heroes of the subject.

The Gaze Is Staunchly Feminist
The gaze is so staunchly feminist and so breathtakingly motherly that it leaves you with a lump in places you didn’t know. But I must warn you, it’s not the sensitive, often simplistic mother you'd assume. This mother, in her birthing experiences, makes you go whoa. What did she just do!! Almost painted as a devi like Durga or Kali… but only she’s the queen… no, she’s the “witch” of the forest. You feel her pain but you also sense her independence, her freedom of choice, decision-making and strength.

That force is penned with startling tenderness as the character Agnes (the fictional version of Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway). Scholars of Shakespeare's world note that Anne Hathaway's own epitaph describes her as a "breastfeeding mother," which at the time would have meant that the mother was instilling in her children her own morality and her own character through breastfeeding. (As historian Katherine Scheil has observed, this was how a mother's essence, her values and her very self, passed into the next generation.)

That is the Agnes you meet here — not a passive figure in the margins of a great man's story, but a force entirely her own.
That's her beauty, beautifully penned as the character Agnes by writer Maggie O'Farrell, ever so beautifully directed by Chloé Zhao, and breathtakingly played by Jesse Buckley.

Jesse Buckley — A Goddess on Screen
I recently watched Buckley give that BAFTA speech and there’s a point where she goes speechless. But here’s what she chooses. She goes on to showcase her vulnerability, asking the audience: well, who did I miss thanking? And she’s crying, and she’s overjoyed, and then before you know it the audience is rooting for her!

Here in the film she is Agnes. And to me this film is very much Agnes' take and her lens.
What can a woman do from that day and age to ensure freedom and space for creativity is provided to her partner, at the cost of them living apart for years?
What does she do if she's literally birthing her children, raising them and nurturing them, all while the father is miles away, writing, directing?
What does a mother do when her only son has passed and the father never got to bid adieu?

Mother Nature as Metaphor & More
There are shots of trees, branches, forests embracing Agnes and vice versa. Nature is the nurturer. The forests serve as an enchantment ground and a force de tour; in fact, they call Agnes the witch of the forest who has some magical, foreseeable powers.
There are moments of the birthing process amidst forests. There are motifs of empty beds and cabins depicting sadness and emptiness. There's an innumerable set of close-up shots on Agnes, depicting each and every single ounce of emotion left in Jesse Buckley, who shines like a goddess.

The enchanting woman whom Shakespeare falls in love with. A solid partner who lets her love breathe and follow his dream. A solid mother, a grieving parent, and an utmost vulnerable human in agony, pain, remorse.
Such beautiful scenes put together into frames and woven into the story, you forget what to admire and what not.

For the Literature Lovers
For the literature lovers there's enough and more Shakespeare thrown in — from Romeo & Juliet to Macbeth to Hamlet, almost performed live on its first day of release near London. Someplace.

The gaze of a woman director, and the writing along with the characters, and their ability to move us and to engulf us in that forest, into their world at Stratford-upon-Avon, is all of what Hamnet is about.
Or wait, no, it's a story of coming to terms with pain, grief, loss, mourning and yearning for a child whom they'll probably never see again.

To See or Not to See…?
So, to go or not to go to the theatres to watch this gut-wrenching piece of work.
That is the question!
And I dare say, go, you must!
Go, if you are ready to sit with a mother’s grief.
Go, if you are willing to see Shakespeare without the pedestal.
Go witness the pain with her.

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