'Hamnet' movie review: Before Hamlet, there was heartbreak

‘Hamnet’ is not interested in polishing the statue of William Shakespeare. It would rather sit in the hallway outside, listening to the floorboards creak. Directed by Chloé Zhao, this is a story about the quiet before the famous words show up. No grand speeches. No dramatic pointing at the sky. Just love, loss, and the kind of silence that feels so thick you could trip over it.

The film opens in gentle calm: children in fields, a warm marriage, a home that feels real. Shakespeare, played by Paul Mescal, drifts between family and ambition, present but slightly distant. Agnes, played by Jessie Buckley, is the steady heart of it all. Then her kid Hamnet dies, suddenly and without fuss. After that, the story shrinks inward. Rooms grow quieter, conversations shorter. Grief moves in and stays. There is a small hint that this pain might turn into art one day, but the film keeps that idea quiet and in the background.

Mescal internalises the sorrow, folding into himself. Buckley lets it move through her in waves, raw and unfiltered. She anchors the film with fierce vulnerability. Visually, Zhao keeps things restrained — think natural light, muted tones, lingering frames. The pacing is deliberate and unhurried. Silence does much of the storytelling. It is immersive, though at times emotionally relentless. This is not a traditional biopic. It is a quiet study of absence. Heavy and intimate, it is not for everyone, but for those who sit with its silence — it lingers long after it ends.