Buckley's performance lifts "Hamnet"

Last weekend, my friend and I went to see “The Bride!” and while the movie was a huge mess, Jessie Buckley gave a great performance. It seemed only fitting that we watch the movie that got her an Oscar nomination (and likely Oscar win), “Hamnet.”

Agnes (Jessie Buckley) and Will (Paul Mescal) have their world turned upside down when their son Hanmet dies. Agnes must stay and raise their remaining children while Will returns to London for his theater company’s next play.

Everything you have heard about Jessie Buckley’s performance in this movie is correct. She is incredible. She deserves the Oscar for two scenes alone in this movie. The first is when Hamnet dies. The grief and sorrow that wash over her when she realizes he has passed is powerful to watch. There is something primal about the scream she unleashes as she sees her son lying motionless. It is the type of emotional performance you rarely see in a film when a character dies. There are always tears, but this show of raw, unfiltered emotion is not common. A lot of the time, it could be seen as “overacting,” but it works with his death. For Agnes, her children are her entire world; Will is busy in London most of the time, leaving her to care for the home and children. A huge piece of her world is now gone, and the only reaction is this primal scream.

The other Oscar-worthy scene is when she sees “Hamlet” performed. It is not made explicit until late in the movie, but Will is William Shakespeare. Unless you know this going in, or that The Bard lost a son named Hamnet who inspired the play “Hamlet,” it might come out of nowhere. At the end of the movie, Agnes and her brother travel to London to see the play. She goes through every emotion possible over the course of the play; everything from anger that a character has her son’s name to pure joy at how her son was honored. She has spent the time since Hamnet’s death angry at Will because she didn’t think he was affected by Hamnet’s death. To see the play, she sees that he was in just as much pain as she was; he just processed it differently.

Were it not for Buckley’s powerhouse performance, the movie would suffer. It moves at a glacial pace, and not much happens beyond Hamet’s death. The movie is beautifully shot in these dense forest locations, which adds a lot to the movie. Not much is known about Shakespeare’s life, so a lot of what happens has to be made up. It is known that he had a son named Hamet who died, and that grief is reflected in the plays he wrote after it happened. Given the unknowns, there was an opportunity to make it a little more interesting.

8/10

Rated PG-13 for thematic content, some strong sexuality, and partial nudity.

2h 5m