Today I saw Hamnet again for the first time since September when I saw it at the Telluride Film Festival.
It continues to be a perfect film for me. I gave it 5 stars when I first saw it and added it to my Top 4 on Letterboxd, and seeing it again only furthered that opinion. I brought a friend who likes Shakespeare with me to see it and had the forethought to bring tissues, which was good because it’s a devastatingly beautiful film.
Hamnet features the best performance I’ve seen from Paul Mescal, whom I think is very talented and has given many great performances.
The biggest win for me though is Jessie Buckley. She and Chloe Zhao bring us along this heartbreaking journey of motherhood and grief, and she is so powerful that I will sue the Academy if she doesn’t win Best Actress this year.
Also, last time I saw Hamnet, I didn’t know that the actor who plays Hamnet, Jacobi Jupe, is real-life brothers with the actor who plays Hamlet in the play when it’s performed in the film, Noah Jupe. They do look quite similar, but knowing this fact made the parallels between their characters all the more real.
This film made me appreciate Hamlet the play on a new level. I’ve never held much space for the character of King Hamlet outside of the context of the play, but seeing “Shakespeare” perform that role made me see it in a new light, and recognize the apology and love letter that is the story of Hamlet. I cannot recommend this film enough to everyone and will probably be going to see it again before the year is out.
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Thanks for reading!
Holly
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