What is Chloé Zhao‘s true voice? When she describes American reality from the perspective of characters who are not very favored by fate, as she did in ‘The Rider’ and ‘Nomadland’? In superhero films like ‘Eternals’? Or now, when she dives into historical fiction with ‘Hamnet‘, the screen adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell‘s best-selling novel about the origin of Shakespeare’s masterpiece? I went to the cinema hall with high expectations, taking into account some of the reviews and the eight nominations the film received for Academy Awards. I can’t say that I left it disappointed, but I can’t either give maximal rate to this solid, professionally made film, with some impressive moments, but nowhere near (in my opinion) a masterpiece or even one of the best films of the awards season.
So little is known about Shakespeare’s life that the field is open to imagination to all those who choose to make the Bard a fictional hero. Almost three decades ago, Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard imagined the woman with whom Will Shakespeare falls in love in London and who becomes his muse, in ‘Shakespeare in Love’ directed by John Madden. Maggie O’Farrell found in the documented (as far as it is known) life of Shakespeare the love of his life in the figure of Anne Hathaway, his wife and mother of his children. In the film she will be called Agnes. O’Farrell and Chloé Zhao‘s Agnes is actually the lead character of the film – a woman connected to nature and with witch talents, a mother ready to make any sacrifice and any magic to protect her children, a devoted wife who cannot oppose her husband’s vocation even if for a while she does not understand his fascination with theater. In the vision of the two authors of the film, the death of the son – common for those times, but so tragic for the parents – becomes the event that triggers the creative storm that became the Bard’s work as a playwright and poet. The story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is the form in which the playwright chooses to keep alive in eternity the name of the son whom fate had taken away.
This film would not be what it is without the exceptional acting creation of Jessie Buckley. I had already noticed her in ‘Lost Daughter’ where she created from short flashbacks, sometimes only a few seconds long, the young version of the main character played by Olivia Colman. Her Agnes is a woman who really lives only in the forest, who tames hawks and chooses to give birth to her first child there, who has a magnetism that is not that of a witch but of a lover and a mother who fiercely protects her children. Paul Mescal bravely enters the role of Shakespeare, as he did in the lead role in ‘Gladiator 2’ and seems to be diligently building his star status without ever shining. It is always a pleasure for me to watch Emily Watson again. In general, the film is well acted and filmed, several scenes are memorable and the atmosphere of the crossroads between the 16th and 17th centuries is brought to the screen in a believable, sometimes cruelly realistic way. And yet, something seems to be missing. The family drama of the Shakespeare couple, no matter how strongly melodramatic it is played, did not manage to be a solid enough foundation for Shakeaspeare’s masterpieces for me. The lovers and the grieving parents are on the screen, but the genius who created the characters and unique lines is not really present. The scene from the performance of ‘Hamlet’ is formidable cinematically, but the Shakespearean verse does not connect with the rest of the story. And I have not yet discovered the real Chloé Zhao.