Before we get into Shakespeare in Love 2: Shakespeare Is Sad, two quick things.

First, I have recently had multiple fairly intense conversations about whether the point of a reviewer (me) is to tell people (you) whether a movie is objectively good. That is, you know, impossible.

Take Hamnet as an example. What if you, an insane person, think that Jessie Buckley is bad? Or what if I, an insane person, think that Shakespeare is “overrated?” How can I tell you whether you will like a Jessie Buckley Shakespeare movie? The return on investment I try to offer you, dear Reader readers, involves insights gleaned from doing this weekly for almost 25 years and, hopefully, a bit of good ole cheeky fun.

There will be very little of the latter in my actual Hamnet review below, just FYI.

Second, understanding that this is a space that can really only exist amid my personal foibles and fondnesses, I should tell you that sad stuff is very much not my jam. It is hard for me to “sit with that feeling,” as therapists say. I do not understand the appeal of voluntarily, willingly, putting on something that makes you purely and only sad when life is full of so much of that all on its own. I love many movies, books, and songs that have made and still make me cry. But they do not make me cry as the point unto itself. I mention this because…

Hamnet is virtually exclusively sad. Super sad. Like, every time you see the term “sad” used to describe this film, imagine that word is wearing a cape, standing with its hands on its hips, crying. It is about how Agnes (Buckley) and Billy Shakes (Paul Mescal) fall in love and have some kids. Then they experience an unthinkable tragedy, the end result of which is The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

That’s all that happens in the entire movie. They meet, they fall in love, they suffer, and then there’s a play.

Writer/director/editor/genius Chloé Zhao, working from Maggie O’Farrell’s beloved novel, has crafted a two-hour cinematic elegy that is largely unparalleled (in my estimation). Similar to Jared Leto should say, apologies to Nine Inch Nails’ reunion for Tron: Ares, but Max Richter’s score is the year’s best. The melodies threaten you at the end of every scene, whispering “this is going to hurt.” And then it does. It does hurt. It hurts very much. And Zhao pushes on the bruise.

There is joy amid the sadness, yes. Which is, I guess, “the point” here. That from the depths of the inexplicably sad can come something impossibly good, something timeless and pure. But even that sentiment is so sadly presented and left me, what’s the word… Part of that feeling comes from what the final sequence represents to me, here and now, very far from London in the 1600s.

Netflix bought Warner Brothers last night. Stay with me! Many experts are arguing that this is quite likely the real “beginning of the end” for movie theaters, if we weren’t already in the beginning of that end for the past few years.

The end of Hamnet has a scene that will stick with me more than Buckley and Mescal’s (fantastic) weeping. It is the last scene of the play Hamlet. Specifically, the movie focuses on the audience watching the play. As one, spurred on by a reflex from a grieving Agnes, they all reach out and try to touch the actor playing Hamlet. But they can’t. So, they touch each other. They all reach out together. They are human beings making a collective extended hand, a massive set of open arms. And they embrace unspeakable grief together.

And that’s what they’re taking away from us.

For real.

That’s what we lose without theatrical releases. That’s what we miss out on if everyone is watching at home. That’s what is gone if we let our annoyances at rude theater goers overwhelm our need to ingest art together. Zhao even makes the point very clear by having Agnes act as a rude theater goer herself. And then the film shows the power of communal experiences: grief diffused.

Anyways, Buckley is just breathlessly good. She is an A-list talent who never seems to be hailed as such. This feels like an unmissable display of excellence, a showy chunk of evidence with which to demand recognition. This is what you ambassadors of art demand in order to heap praise, right? Give her all the trophies. Mescal, who I have not previously had a reaction to one way or another, is not equally excellent but is as excellent as anyone who is not Jessie Buckley can be.

All of this is to say, maybe you’ll like Hamnet? You have to be willing to be, wait for it, very sad. But it’s worth it. That is coming from someone who (A) does not like to be very sad and (B) likes considering and talking about death less than I like to be very sad. Hope that helps?

Grade = A-

Other Critical Voices to Consider

Victor Pineyro at Seventh Art Studio says the film “is a profound exploration of love, loss, what we sacrifice, what we cling to, what we let go of, what we take from those who are gone, and the transformation of the mind that, over time, recognizes grief as the purest form of love. But it is also a reminder of how art saves us, how it has done so for thousands of years and will continue to do so for centuries to come.” (Full review in Spanish)

Stephanie Zacharek at Time says “It’s true that in the writing of history, women’s lives—particularly their inner lives—don’t get the same attention that men’s exploits do. But in this movie version of Hamnet, it’s the man who works the most dazzling witchcraft, turning his sorrow into something heavier than lead and lighter than air.”

Sarah G. Vincent says “Imagine being an audience member for one of the greatest plays ever made and seeing it for the first time, and instead of being entertained, you see everything that you felt in the unfamiliar and thought was only an individual experience but is actually a universal and becomes communal. We kind of take it for granted with entertainment now, and we are a culture allergic to grappling with death. It worked for me, and I understand why it would not work for everyone.”