Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.
Hamnet (Chloé Zhao, 2025) rated PG-13 136 min.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
WHAT HAPPENS: (This film is largely fictional drama, though it’s somewhat inspired by a few historical facts. As it begins, a title card tells us in late 16th-century England the names “Hamnet” and “Hamlet” were seen as identical.) In the 1580s in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, Agnes (not Anne this time) Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) is a young woman strongly in tune with nature (stories are her mother was a witch, but at the very least she taught Agnes about mystical connections with the biological world) who has a pet falcon, often sleeps in the woods; then meets also-young William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) with aspirations of being a poet (even as his brutal father, John [David Wilmot], insists he should be a farmer), barely supports himself by teaching Latin to a few local boys. He’s immediately smitten with her, she returns the favor, and due to little support from either family the young lovers marry (she’s pregnant), soon have a daughter, Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach). Well aware of her husband’s frustration with his stalled life, Agnes has her brother, Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn), take Will to London to start a theatrical career while she and Susanna remain in Stratford, even as she’s pregnant again. When delivery time comes she tries to go to the woods but Will’s family keeps her at home where she gives birth to twins Judith (Olivia Lynes) and Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe); Judith seems to be stillborn until Agnes’ powers revive this child.
A few years later, with Will only home infrequently as his plays are successful, Judith contracts the deadly bubonic/black plague, is dying until Hamnet somehow trades his life for hers, with Agnes unable to save him. Agnes is furious with Will for not being there when his son expired (in 1596), but he soon departs for London again where he writes Hamlet. When Agnes learns of this new work she’s horrified that it uses their son’s name so she goes to London to confront Will. ⇒Attending the play, though, she sees Hamlet (Noah Jupe, Jacobi’s older brother) is the troubled prince of Denmark with Will playing the ghost of Hamlet’s father, in a way showing his grief for the dead boy by becoming the dead one while allowing Hamnet to grow to young adulthood as Hamlet. Agnes pushes her way through the groundlings to the edge of the stage as we see a few additional scenes from the play, ending with Hamlet’s death, at which point she reaches out to hold the actor’s hand, prompting those around her to also reach out to the stage. The film ends with Agnes now seeing Hamnet alive on the stage before he looks at her, then walks into the backstage darkness as Agnes seems to now be reconciled with Will.⇐ If you’d like additional plot details, you can visit this site.
SO WHAT? Given the consistently positive things I’d read about Hamnet last fall I anxiously awaited for it to stream (although CCAL numbers aren’t as high as I’d anticipated; a bit more on that in this review’s next section below); my anticipation was further enhanced when Oscar nominations were announced as Hamnet’s up for Best Picture, Director (Zhao previously won both of those for her 2020 Nomadland as she was also one of the producers), Actress in a Leading Role (as a possible foreshadowing for this year, in Nomadland Francis McDormand won in this category), Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Production Design, Costuming, and Casting with some decent chances to win in any of those (although it’s up against tough competition from One Battle After Another [Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025] in most contests, and I barely prefer either Emma Stone [Bugonia, Yorgos Lanathimos, 2025] or Rose Byrne [If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Mary Bronstein, 2025] to Buckley, although she does successfully become the intensifying focus of her film). Hamnet’s adapted from the novel of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell (2020), which my generally-better-read-than-me wife Nina found to be superior to its cinematic adaption (even though O’Farrell’s listed as co-screenwriter with Zhao) for many of the same reasons Nicholas Barber’s put off by it (his review also in the section below) as well as not that much focus in the film on the plague that was so prevalent in those days and her disappointment with the adaptation’s last scene ⇒where Agnes is at the London production of Hamlet which in the book includes only the play’s interaction between Prince Hamlet and the ghost of his dead father, King Hamlet (Act I, Scene 5), as the ghost leaves the stage saying to his son “Remember me,” whereas in the film we get considerably more of the play, ending with Hamlet's death, then Agnes’ private vision of young Hamnet turning away after looking at his mother, walking into the backstage darkness. Nina found a lot of impact in the “Remember me” statement, thought it would have been appropriate for Agnes’ vision of young Hamnet to have said it as he left, but instead there's their silent acknowledgement of each other.⇐
With Nina's encouragement, I read just those last few pages of the book (no option at present to explore more as much time was spent this week, just like last week, on computer repair, tax prep, watching Olympics figure skating, plus enduring much of Agent Orange’s State of the Union speech—I was in need of getting my heart rate up to stroke level, I guess [all of which contributed to this posting arriving considerably later than I intended]) as I tried to keep my record clean on rarely reading the novel a film comes from in order to avoid the inevitable letdown that tries to appreciate both media versions given how much more an author can do with unlimited page space and intricate structures, experiencing even in a few paragraphs what an eloquent writer O’Farrell is. Because all I really know is the film, I found it quite sorrowfully-impactful with marvelous performances by Buckley and Mescal; I was probably also encouraged to my 4 stars by the inclusion of several scenes from the Hamlet play, what I consider to be the finest narrative ever written for the stage, with the marvelous Kenneth Branagh directed/starring Hamlet (1996) as being the only adaptation I've seen that uses/captures the full material of that lengthy theatre version. But, in regard to Hamnet, if you’d like to explore more about it you could begin with this short video (3:36) which examines how much of this story is based in history vs. what's viable fiction, then you could move on to a marvelous, extensive video by my highly-respected analyst, Lucas Blue (24:46), where he explores symbols, themes, and the ending (so, yes, Spoilers are involved), all of which I think would enhance your experience of this fine film, even though you might ultimately prefer what you’d find in the novel.
BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: Hamnet opened in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on November 26, 2025 with its widest release to 1,996 of them (still in 301) having grossed $23.1 million so far ($87 million worldwide), although it’s most likely found via streaming where it rents for $19.99 from Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. The CCAL’s supportive of you watching it with 86% positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, an astoundingly-close 84% Metacritic average score, even as all of the praise I became aware months ago implied even higher numbers (in contrast, One Battle … got 95% from both critics-accumulation sites). An example of someone who truly liked Hamnet (even more than me) is Peter Debruge of Variety (100% MC score [just like 18 of their 54 cited critics with the same score, followed by a cluster of 80%s]) who says: “In her [Zhao] hands, Shakespeare’s indelible line doesn’t represent a contemplation of suicide so much as what it means to be — to fully embrace life, when the inevitability of death is enough to paralyze one into a self-protective stupor. Ultimately, the filmmaker invites the world to feel loss in a new way, and in letting go, liberates something fundamental in all of us.” Of course, you can’t please all of the people all of the time (even though Trump seems to claim that he can, based on that mostly-bullshit, way-longer-than-it-needed-to-be speech of his given this week), as voiced by those such as the BBC’s Nicholas Barber (40% MC score): “But does Hamnet live up to the promise of its stellar personnel? That is the question. It's true that many viewers have already fallen under its spell, but Zhao and O'Farrell have stripped away so much of what makes the novel magical – the time-travelling structure, the hypnotic prose rhythms, the internal monologues and the tiny, tangible details – that what's left is no more profound or authentic than any other costume drama set in ye olde days.” Ugh!
I certainly wouldn’t go anywhere near Barber’s low in assigning stars, but based on what little I read of the book I can see that he (and Nina) has a position to at least argue from, given the richness of the novel; now, do I have such an acceptance with my unusual choice of a Musical Metaphor for Hamnet which I’m taking from Hamlet, the famous "To be or not to be" speech, because, really, what is a song but certain words said to a certain rhythm (iambic pentameter in this case) as what begins (Act III, Scene I) with “To be, or not to be, that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them,” then continues on in grandly-eloquent, thought-provoking fashion sums up nicely what Agnes, Will, even Hamnet (not to mention us as we ponder what we’re seeing on screen) are dealing with in this sorrowful story, so I’ll give you a version of that soliloquy from a well-honored screen adaptation of Hamlet directed by/starring Sir Laurence Olivier (1948; won Oscars for Best Picture, Actor, Art Direction-Set Decoration - Black and White, Costume Design - Black and White; RT 96%). Yet, given my even-greater admiration for the Branagh take on Hamlet, I’ll leave you with your own consideration of watching Hamnet as you bask in this scene as delivered by Branagh. (His version got 4 Oscar noms but no wins, so what do I know anyway? Well, maybe something, because Branagh’s version got 95% RT positives, a damn fine response!)
SHORT TAKES
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