DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. In the new drama "Hamnet," which opens in limited release next week, Paul Mescal plays William Shakespeare as a young playwright, husband and father in the years leading up to his writing of "Hamlet." The film, which also stars Jessie Buckley as Agnes, Shakespeare's wife, was adapted from Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel. It's the latest movie from Chloe Zhao, the Oscar-winning director of "Nomadland." Our film critic Justin Chang has this review.
JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: In her moving 2020 novel "Hamnet," the Northern Irish writer Maggie O'Farrell explored the possibility that a real-life tragedy may have inspired one of the greatest fictional tragedies ever written. William Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, died at the age of 11 in 1596, a few years before the first recorded performances of "Hamlet" at the Globe Theatre in London. From these facts, O'Farrell spun a historical fiction, a mix of research and speculation into Shakespeare's personal life, starting with his rapturous romance with a farmer's daughter, Anne Hathaway, the arrival of their three children, and the effect of Hamnet's death and Shakespeare's career on their marriage. Now O'Farrell has co-written an adaptation of her novel with the director Chloe Zhao, and it plays like a more sombre and realistic version of "Shakespeare In Love." Call it "Shakespeare In Grief" (ph). The chief focus isn't really Shakespeare at all, though he's sensitively played by Paul Mescal. The heart of the movie is Anne, though here, as in certain historical documents, she's referred to as Agnes. She's played by an extraordinary Jessie Buckley.
Agnes is a gifted healer with a deep connection to the Earth. She's most at home wandering the woods near her family's farmhouse in Stratford-upon-Avon. She falls into a passionate romance with William, who's tutoring her younger brothers in Latin to help out his father, a struggling glove maker. Agnes becomes pregnant to the chagrin of both families, especially William's mother, Mary, played by a strong Emily Watson. Even so, the two lovers marry and settle down. Agnes gives birth to a daughter, Susanna. But before long, William, on the verge of becoming the most celebrated writer in the English language, is feeling boxed in by sleepy Stratford. And so Agnes selflessly sends him off to London, knowing he'll find the creative outlet he seeks there. William is thus away when she gives birth to their twins, Hamnet and Judith. They enjoy a happy childhood, despite their father's long absences from home. In this scene, William prepares to say the latest of many farewells to Hamnet, who's played by Jacobi Jupe.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HAMNET")
JACOBI JUPE: (As Hamnet) Will we go with you this time?
PAUL MESCAL: (As William Shakespeare) No, not yet. Hey. I'll miss you. But I have to go. You understand, darling.
JACOBI: (As Hamnet) I know. I understand.
MESCAL: (As William Shakespeare) That's good. 'Cause I need you to look after your mother and your sisters. Will you do that?
JACOBI: (As Hamnet) Yes.
MESCAL: (As William Shakespeare) Will you be brave?
JACOBI: (As Hamnet) Yes.
MESCAL: (As William Shakespeare) Yes? Will you be brave?
JACOBI: (As Hamnet) Yes.
MESCAL: (As William Shakespeare) Will you be brave?
JACOBI: (As Hamnet) Yes. I'll be brave. I'll be brave. I'll be brave.
CHANG: After her clunky 2021 Marvel movie "Eternals," it's good to see Chloe Zhao back on firmer footing with "Hamnet," though it isn't necessarily a film I'd have expected her to make. With its English-period setting and real-life historical figures, it's a far cry from dramas like "Nomadland" and "Songs My Brothers Taught Me," which used a mix of fiction and nonfiction techniques to focus on little seen corners of rural American life. That said, there are echoes of the director's past work throughout "Hamnet." William has some of the same vocational drivenness as, say, the rodeo cowboy we meet in Zhao's film, "The Writer," determined to do what he was born to do. But William's time away from home takes a heavy toll on Agnes and their children, and Hamnet is, among other things, a tense portrait of marital estrangement. Agnes is, in many ways, a classic Zhao character - a woman deeply and eccentrically attuned to the natural world. She also feels like an amalgam of some of Buckley's past roles, the wild child she played in the thriller "Beast," but also the ill-treated girlfriends she played in mind bending films like "Men" and "I'm Thinking Of Ending Things." There's an elemental force to Buckley's performance in "Hamnet." When Agnes gives birth or watches as her son takes his last breath, she howls her agony to the skies. At some point, Buckley doesn't even seem to be acting anymore, so effortlessly does she seem to inhabit Agnes' earthy mysticism, her maternal love and her bottomless grief and despair.
She's the reason the film is as affecting as it is, especially at the climax, when we finally see how Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, and the first production of his play, "Hamlet" converge. I'm still wrestling with what I think of this sequence, which will undoubtedly move audiences to tears. The first time I saw it, I shed more than a few myself. It's undeniably effective. It also feels a little reductive in the way that it regards an endlessly complex Shakespeare masterwork in purely therapeutic terms, a means of achieving closure. Zhao knows that in the end, the play is the thing. But as staged here, it feels like a smaller, less meaningful thing than it should.
BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed "Hamnet." On Monday's show, actor Brendan Fraser tells us about his new film "Rental Family." He plays a struggling American actor in Tokyo who works for a service that provides stand-in family members for rent. We'll also trace Fraser's remarkable resurgence from "The Whale" to "Killers Of The Flower Moon" and beyond. I hope you can join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF MIKE FAHIE JAZZ ORCHESTRA'S "SYMPHONY NO. 6, II. ALLEGRO CON GRAZIA")
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(SOUNDBITE OF MIKE FAHIE JAZZ ORCHESTRA'S "SYMPHONY NO. 6, II. ALLEGRO CON GRAZIA")
BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Briger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld, and Diana Martinez (ph). Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
(SOUNDBITE OF MIKE FAHIE JAZZ ORCHESTRA'S "SYMPHONY NO. 6, II. ALLEGRO CON GRAZIA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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