Hamnet: Shakespeare’s Dead Kid Gets the Full Hollywood Treatment
Another Oscar-Baiting Tragedy Hits Theaters Harder Than a Plague
Hollywood has officially run out of ideas. After exhausting every possible superhero origin story, romantic comedy about a workaholic learning to love, and film about a misunderstood genius who was “ahead of his time,” the entertainment industry has resorted to making movies about William Shakespeare’s dead children. Yes, Hamnet has arrived, and it’s exactly as emotionally manipulative as you’d expect from a film that essentially asks, “What if we took the most famous writer in human history and made him really, really sad?”
Director Chloé Zhao, fresh off her Oscar win for Nomadland (a film about economic despair disguised as a road trip), has decided that what audiences really need is two hours of watching Paul Mescal brood in period costume while Jessie Buckley out-acts everyone within a fifty-mile radius. The result is a movie so devastatingly beautiful that film critics are already practicing their “this changed cinema forever” speeches for awards season.
As Jerry Seinfeld once observed, “What’s the deal with movies that make you cry? I paid twelve dollars to feel bad? I can feel bad at home for free!” Yet here we are, lining up to watch Shakespeare process grief like a 16th-century therapy session.
The Plot: Death, But Make It Art
Hamnet tells the story of young Hamnet Shakespeare, the Bard’s son whose death supposedly inspired Hamlet. Because apparently, even in the 1500s, successful writers were mining their personal trauma for content. It’s like finding out that Dave Chappelle‘s entire career was inspired by a particularly devastating breakup in high school.
The film follows Agnes (Jessie Buckley), Shakespeare’s wife who apparently spent most of her time communing with nature and giving birth under trees like some sort of Elizabethan hippie. William (Paul Mescal) is portrayed as a moody writer who disappears to London for months at a time to “establish his career” – which is basically the Renaissance equivalent of a deadbeat dad claiming he’s “finding himself.”
When plague hits their household, it’s young Hamnet who makes the ultimate sacrifice, switching places with his twin sister Judith in death’s lottery. The film suggests this tragic event inspired Shakespeare to write Hamlet, which means the most famous play in the English language exists because a kid tried to outsmart death. Talk about your ultimate plot twist.
Amy Schumer probably summed it up best when she said, “I love when people are like, ‘It’s based on a true story.’ Yeah, the true story of how Hollywood found another reason to make us sad.”
Paul Mescal: Brooding His Way to Another Oscar Nomination
Paul Mescal continues his impressive streak of playing physically imposing men with crippling emotional problems. After Normal People and Aftersun, Mescal has cornered the market on “beautiful men who make you want to give them a hug and also maybe some therapy.” His Shakespeare is less “to be or not to be” and more “to brood or to brood some more.”
The film opens with Will as a Latin tutor, which is Hollywood’s way of saying “look how intellectual and sensitive he is.” Because nothing says “future literary genius” like a guy who can’t afford to pay his father’s debts but somehow finds time to write sonnets. It’s the 16th-century equivalent of being an influencer.
Mescal spends most of the movie looking like he’s about to cry or just finished crying, which is apparently what passes for “nuanced performance” these days. By the film’s end, when he’s covered in white paint playing the ghost of Hamlet’s father, he looks like a sad mime who’s given up on finding his way out of an invisible box.
Bill Burr once joked, “You know what I love about actors? They get paid millions to pretend to have problems that regular people actually have.” Watching Mescal’s Shakespeare struggle with writer’s block while living in a beautiful countryside estate pretty much proves Bill’s point.
Jessie Buckley: Acting So Hard It Hurts
If Paul Mescal is the film’s emotional anchor, Jessie Buckley is its nuclear reactor. Her performance as Agnes is so intensely committed that you half expect her to start method acting in real life, birthing twins under oak trees and training falcons in her backyard.
Buckley plays Agnes as part earth goddess, part grieving mother, part woman who’s had it up to here with her husband’s artistic pretensions. When Hamnet dies, her grief is so raw and visceral that audience members reportedly started crying in the theater’s bathroom afterward. It’s the kind of performance that makes other actors consider retirement.
The film’s most devastating moment comes when Agnes discovers that William has written a play using their dead son’s name. Her reaction suggests this is somehow worse than the actual death, which raises questions about Elizabethan copyright law and whether Shakespeare needed his wife’s permission to monetize their trauma.
Ricky Gervais would probably point out, “She’s upset that he named a play after their dead kid? At least he didn’t start a reality show called ‘Keeping Up with the Shakespeares.'”
Chloé Zhao’s Direction: Nature Porn Meets Emotional Torture
Zhao directs Hamnet like she’s making a nature documentary about human suffering. Every shot is so beautifully composed that you forget you’re watching people’s lives fall apart. The countryside looks gorgeous, the period details are impeccable, and the lighting suggests that even 16th-century England had access to professional cinematographers.
The director’s obsession with natural settings means Agnes spends half the movie rolling around in fields like she’s auditioning for a medieval Clairol commercial. There’s something deeply pretentious about making grief look this picturesque, as if suffering is only valid when it happens against a stunning backdrop.
Zhao’s previous films dealt with economic displacement and cultural identity, so naturally, her next move was to tackle the death of a privileged white child 400 years ago. It’s the kind of career trajectory that makes sense only in Hollywood, where authentic experiences are less important than Oscar-friendly subject matter.
Trevor Noah once noted, “Hollywood loves making movies about historical tragedies because it’s the only way they can make suffering seem sophisticated.”
The Shakespeare Industrial Complex Strikes Again
Hamnet represents everything wrong with our culture’s obsession with Shakespeare. The film treats the Bard like some sort of literary deity whose every family dysfunction deserves cinematic treatment. What’s next? A movie about Shakespeare’s toilet habits titled Much Ado About Nothing Important?
The reverence with which the film approaches its subject matter is suffocating. Every line of dialogue sounds like it was written by someone desperately trying to sound Shakespearean, and every emotional beat is telegraphed with the subtlety of a Renaissance fair performer.
Hollywood’s Shakespeare fetish has given us countless adaptations, from Romeo + Juliet to Shakespeare in Love, and now Hamnet. It’s as if the entertainment industry believes that slapping the Shakespeare name on anything automatically makes it important. It’s the cinematic equivalent of putting a “classical music makes babies smarter” sticker on your minivan.
Chris Rock probably said it best: “White people love Shakespeare so much they made movies about his kids dying. Black people can’t even get movies about our kids living.”
Child Actors Who Make You Question Your Life Choices
Jacobi Jupe, who plays the doomed Hamnet, delivers a performance so mature and heartbreaking that it makes you wonder what you were doing with your life at eleven years old. (Spoiler alert: You were probably eating cereal and watching cartoons, like a normal child.)
The kid actor’s final scene, where he tells his sister he’ll “be brave” before taking her place in death’s lineup, is performed with such conviction that grown adults are leaving theaters questioning their own courage and moral fiber. It’s deeply uncomfortable to be emotionally devastated by someone who probably still needs help reaching the top shelf.
Young Jupe makes the ultimate sacrifice seem noble and purposeful, which is exactly the kind of romanticized view of childhood death that makes Hamnet both powerful and deeply problematic. The film suggests that sometimes kids need to die to inspire great art, which is a message that probably should have stayed in the 16th century.
Jim Gaffigan would undoubtedly point out, “A kid actor making me cry? Great, now I’m taking life advice from someone who gets driven to work by their mom.”
The Awards Circuit Machine Cranks to Life
Hamnet premiered at Venice, played Telluride, and hit Toronto, which is festival circuit speak for “we’re coming for your Oscar votes.” The film’s tragic subject matter, impeccable craftsmanship, and period setting make it the kind of prestige picture that Academy voters eat up like free shrimp at a members-only event.
Kevin Hart would probably look at this whole festival tour and say, “They’re taking Hamnet to every film festival like it’s a traveling grief show! ‘Step right up, see the dead Shakespeare kid! Tissues not included!’ What’s next, a Hamnet theme park?”
Critics are already calling it “shattering,” “transcendent,” and “devastating,” which are the three magic words that guarantee awards attention. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a perfectly engineered tearjerker, designed to make voters feel sophisticated while they sob into their ballot papers.
The film’s release strategy suggests Focus Features knows exactly what they have: a beautifully crafted emotional manipulation device that will make audiences feel cultured while they’re being psychologically pummeled. It’s like paying for therapy, but with better costumes.
Sarah Silverman once said, “I love when movies make me cry and then I realize I paid twenty dollars to be emotionally abused by strangers.”
The Problem with Grief Porn
Hamnet belongs to that special category of films that mistake emotional devastation for artistic achievement. The movie is undeniably well-made, beautifully acted, and expertly crafted, but it also feels designed to exploit our natural empathy for grieving parents.
There’s something slightly pornographic about the way the film lingers on suffering, presenting tragedy as entertainment for audiences who get to experience catharsis without any real cost. We cry for two hours, feel emotionally purged, and then go home to our living children, somehow convinced we’ve experienced something profound.
The film’s treatment of historical figures as emotional archetypes reduces real people to symbols in our contemporary grief narratives. Shakespeare becomes Every Grieving Father, Agnes becomes Every Mourning Mother, and Hamnet becomes Every Lost Child. It’s reductive and manipulative, even when it’s beautiful.
Louis C.K. might have put it this way: “Movies about dead kids are just guilt porn for people who feel bad about not appreciating their own families. It’s like going to church, but with popcorn.”
The Verdict: Beautiful, Devastating, and Completely Unnecessary
Hamnet is a technical masterpiece that will make you question why you paid money to feel this terrible. It’s gorgeously shot, phenomenally acted, and completely devastating in all the ways the filmmakers intended. It’s also the kind of movie that exists primarily to make audiences feel sophisticated about consuming tragedy as entertainment.
Jessie Buckley delivers a career-defining performance that will haunt you long after the credits roll. Paul Mescal continues his transformation into Britain’s most beautiful sad boy. And Chloé Zhao proves she can make any subject matter look like a luxury commercial for human suffering.
The film succeeds in its goals: it’s moving, beautiful, and will probably win several Oscars. It also raises uncomfortable questions about our appetite for historical trauma and whether some stories are too personal to be transformed into public entertainment.
Wanda Sykes would probably conclude, “A movie about Shakespeare’s dead kid winning awards? Baby, that’s just another Tuesday in Hollywood. They’ll give an Oscar to anything that makes rich people cry.”
In the end, Hamnet is exactly what it appears to be: a beautiful, well-crafted film about terrible things happening to famous people. Whether that’s enough to justify its existence depends on how much you enjoy having your heart broken by professionals.
The movie opens in limited theaters this fall, expanding wide just in time for awards season. Because nothing says “holiday entertainment” like dead children inspiring great literature.
