Kelsey - Hamnet movie adaptation

 

Hi! My name is Kelsey and being the next guest blogger after Donnie is intimidating.

 

I have a long history of saying I hate Shakespeare. And I stand by that claim…with two exceptions.

 

1.      Sleep No More. An immersive theater experience loosely based on Macbeth. I could write several blog posts on that alone.

2.      Works ABOUT Shakespeare. I’ll be honest I can only think of two but I enjoyed both. I read Will in the World a few years ago on Missy’s recommendation. And Hamnet.

I read Hamnet a few years ago as well because I was running a bookstagram at the time and the book was very popular. I loved it. But the reason we are here today is because the movie came out. I also reread the book to prepare.

Mariam and I snuck out of work early the week before Christmas so we could go see it. The theater was mostly empty except for a handful of retired women who had their tissues ready to go. We did not which was a mistake for sure.

 

We’ve got Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare. I could just tell he was going to be perfect and he was.

And Jessie Buckley as Agnes Hathaway. I don’t think I have ever seen her in anything before so I had few expectations but I do think she blew it away.

Let me say that Hamnet (especially the book but also the movie) is actually mostly Agnes’ story. In the book Shakespeare is never named and the movie for the most part stuck with that except for twice. Agnes calls him Will once and her brother asks where William Shakespeare lives. I was a little disappointed especially because they made it until the last 30 or so minutes.

The movie goes chronologically unlike the book so it starts with Shakespeare and Agnes meeting. He’s immediately enthralled. And honestly, she kind of is too.

There is a scene where he is working up the courage to propose they be handfast and it’s so funny and sweet. He nervously paces in circles around her and a pile of manure. She ends up pregnant and his family is very upset but obviously they have to get married.

 

It was around this point during the movie that I realized I should take pictures for Mariam for the blog. And then I took so many because the movie was just so beautiful. Every shot was perfect. I think the director and the cinematographer need to work together forever.

 

The next few years of their lives are sped through fairly quickly. They have their first daughter, Susanna. Shakespeare starts feeling unfulfilled with his work.

 

Agnes is pregnant again but she realizes he needs to be in London. So she sends him off with the plan being that they will join him eventually. She is surprised when she has twins, Hamnet and Judith, because she has always seen herself on her death bed with two children standing next to her. Judith almost doesn’t survive at birth but she pulls through.

 

We then jump to when the twins are 11 years old. They are so cute.

 

Shakespeare is home infrequently but for the most part everyone seems happy. He wants them to move to London with him but Agnes is concerned about Judith as she has always been sickly.

 

In the book, there is an entire chapter where you follow a flea that brings the plague to the UK. I was so curious if they were going to incorporate this into the movie. They did, in probably the best way they could. Unfortunately, the only picture I have is blurry lol.

 

They did it with a puppet show that Shakespeare sees while he is in London. Oh, this is one of the main differences between the book and movie. We follow Shakespeare a bit more. We see him in London twice. We see a bit of him dealing with his grief. Which leads you to probably guess where this is going. Judith gets sick. Agnes works tirelessly to save her. Hamnet switches places in bed to trick death to take him instead.

It’s heartbreaking. I probably cried before this moment but I think this really was the start of the pretty steady stream of tears. At some point in all of this someone sends word to London that Judith is dying and Shakespeare is rushing home. He runs in and sees Judith up and about and is so thrilled. Then he turns and sees his boy is dead. More tears.

 

The movie showed Hamnet dying by having him on his fathers stage for Hamlet. It comes back into play later. But he is alone and scared and calling for mama and I hate it.

More time passes. I was a little unclear of how much but enough for Shakespeare to have had a huge house built. But he comes home. I think him and Agnes have their first real conversation since Hamnet’s death.

He wants her and their daughters to move into the new house but thinks they won’t want to because this is the last place Hamnet was alive. She tells him she knows he is thinking that but also says something like “He isn’t here. I’ve looked. We will both probably spend the rest of our lives looking for him.” Seeing these two broken people and their almost broken marriage was hard. The misplaced anger she has was very well done and I think often accurate.

Something I haven’t really mentioned (except for one brief hint) is that this story has an element of magical realism. Agnes has kind of premonitions. Or inklings of the future. I’m not totally sure, it’s never fleshed out in any way. But when she touches someone’s hand she gets images or visions or something. When she first meets Shakespeare I think she says she sees fields.

 

At this point in the movie he puts his hand into hers and asks “What do you see now?” and she looks at him and says “Nothing.” More tears. Obviously.

More time jumps. He’s in London and basically never comes home. Agnes finds out he wrote a tragedy named Hamlet. She is upset and goes to London with her brother to find him and to see it.

 

She starts out angry about the whole thing. Then Shakespeare comes out as the ghost and suddenly she gets it.

They kept doing this shot of her in the front of the crowd and she is often turned a different way than everyone else.

Oh, the actor that was playing Hamlet was the real life brother of the actor playing Hamnet. Brilliant move. As he is dying she reaches out to hold his hand.

 Then everyone else does as well.

 

Hamlet dies and she looks at Shakespeare.

Remember how when Hamnet was dying he was on that stage? He’s back.

And this time his mama is there with him. Remember how before she moved to the new house she says “he isn’t here”? In the book, as she watches the play she keeps repeating “He is here. He is here.” Both are brutal and I think the movie did it well without having her internal dialogue.

Literally crying again. I did not expect this post to be this long. The movie is so good. If you are okay with sad movies I definitely think you should see this. Okay goodbye, thank you got hosting me Missy and Mariam 😊.