Review: ‘Hamnet’ is a raw, stunning portrait of grief
(02/09/26 7:10am)
“Hamnet” is a film designed to make you cry. In Chloé Zhao’s film, raw performances and breathtaking cinematography coalesce into a stunning meditation on grief and its endurance. An adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, “Hamnet” follows William Shakespeare’s nuclear family before and after the death of his son Hamnet. Both the novel and the screenplay, which was co-written by O’Farrell and Zhao, assume that Shakespeare’s famous tragedy “Hamlet” was inspired by the death of his son. Although scholars debate the veracity of this premise, its historicity is ultimately irrelevant — the film never claims to be accurate, and its power derives from its efficacy as a deeply human tale.