Released in October 2025, Hamnet is a haunting and deeply human adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel, brought to life by Academy Award nominee Chloé Zhao, whose gift for intimate storytelling meets historical grandeur in perfect harmony. The 2025 film, distributed by Focus Features, stars Jessie Buckley as Agnes Hathaway and Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare, supported by Phoebe Dynevor, Lenny Henry, and Ruth Negga. Written for the screen by Emerald Fennell, the film merges delicate emotion with visual poetry.
In this movie review, I reflect on how Hamnet (2025) transforms history into a living, breathing work of art. Sitting in the cinema, surrounded by hushed silence and candlelit frames, I realized that Zhao hasn’t just filmed a story—she’s captured the soul of creativity itself.
Genre: Drama
A Story Between Life and Art
At its heart, Hamnet is not about fame or genius but about the quiet tragedies that shape both. Set in 16th-century England, it follows the lives of Agnes Hathaway and her husband William Shakespeare as they navigate love, hardship, and the unimaginable loss that would inspire Hamlet, one of the greatest works in literature.
Yet Zhao’s direction ensures this is not a film about Shakespeare the legend, but Shakespeare the man—flawed, ambitious, often absent—and the woman who grounded his genius. Agnes, played with remarkable depth by Jessie Buckley, emerges not as a footnote to history but as its heartbeat. Her spiritual intuition and emotional strength drive the story, reminding us that behind every enduring creation lies a story of human suffering.
Zhao’s camera lingers on the domestic—the flicker of a candle, the touch of a hand, the shadow of a windowpane—turning the mundane into the profound. Every image feels carved from memory, every moment a quiet act of devotion.
Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal – The Soul and Shadow of a Marriage
Performances anchor this 2025 film with unshakable honesty. Jessie Buckley gives an extraordinary portrayal of Agnes, capturing her connection to the natural world and her quiet defiance against societal expectation. There’s a mystical quality to her presence—she seems to live between earth and ether, speaking more through gesture and silence than dialogue. Buckley doesn’t perform Agnes; she inhabits her.
Paul Mescal, meanwhile, brings a restrained vulnerability to William Shakespeare. His Shakespeare is no distant icon but a young husband, uncertain and deeply human. Mescal’s eyes carry the ache of ambition and guilt in equal measure. Together, Buckley and Mescal create a marriage that feels both fragile and eternal—built on tenderness, misunderstanding, and unspoken love.
Their chemistry is breathtaking, not because of grand declarations, but because of the quiet moments: a shared glance, a word left unsaid, a simple hand brushing against another. It’s in those moments that Hamnet becomes transcendent.
Chloé Zhao’s Direction – Poetry in Motion
Chloé Zhao has always been a director drawn to silence—the spaces between words, the pauses between breaths—and Hamnet might be her most poetic work yet. After Nomadland and Eternals, Zhao fuses her gift for realism with a painter’s eye for composition.
The result is a film review writer’s dream: a movie that feels simultaneously epic and intimate. Zhao’s lens finds beauty in sorrow, capturing the Elizabethan world not as a museum piece but as something alive and weathered. Fields glow in late-afternoon light, rain falls like memory, and firelight flickers with the warmth of remembrance.
Her collaboration with cinematographer Joshua James Richards results in imagery so immersive it feels tactile. You can almost smell the woodsmoke, feel the damp earth, and hear the quiet hum of grief beneath the surface.
The Screenplay – Emotion Etched in Every Line
Emerald Fennell’s screenplay distills Maggie O’Farrell’s prose into something lyrical yet accessible. The dialogue is sparse but potent, allowing silences to carry emotional weight. Each line feels like it has been written by hand, with care and restraint.
Fennell captures the contradictions of marriage—the yearning, the frustration, the fierce loyalty—and intertwines them with questions of art and immortality. The script wisely avoids grandeur; instead, it finds truth in the everyday details that make loss unbearable and love unforgettable.
The pacing is deliberate, reflective of grief itself: moments of calm punctuated by waves of overwhelming emotion. This rhythm gives the film its quiet power, refusing to rush or sensationalize.
A Visual Elegy – The Look and Feel of Memory
Visually, Hamnet (2025) is breathtaking. Zhao and Richards construct each frame like a painting from the Dutch masters—soft natural light, muted tones, and careful attention to texture. The costumes, designed by Jacqueline Durran, are authentic yet understated, avoiding period drama extravagance in favor of lived-in realism.
The production design by Nathan Crowley recreates Tudor England with striking intimacy. You can feel the chill of the stone walls, the creak of wooden floors, and the fragility of life in every candlelit corner.
The score, composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir, weaves melancholy strings with moments of pure silence. Her music doesn’t overwhelm; it breathes with the film, allowing emotion to emerge naturally. The final notes linger like a prayer—graceful, haunting, unforgettable.
Themes – Creation, Grief, and the Meaning of Legacy
At its core, Hamnet (2025) is a meditation on what it means to create out of pain. Zhao and Fennell use the story of Shakespeare’s family to explore universal questions: How do we transform suffering into art? Can love outlast loss? What remains of us when we’re gone?
The film portrays grief not as spectacle, but as endurance. Agnes’s journey is one of acceptance—learning to live with absence rather than erase it. Through her, Zhao suggests that creation itself can be an act of resurrection, that art is how we remember those we’ve lost.
This theme resonates long after the credits roll. In a world obsessed with fame, Hamnet quietly reminds us that legacy isn’t built on applause, but on empathy and remembrance.
Supporting Performances – A Chorus of Humanity
Beyond Buckley and Mescal, the ensemble enriches the story with authenticity and grace. Phoebe Dynevor delivers a layered performance as Susanna, capturing the generational weight of expectation. Lenny Henry provides wisdom and warmth in a pivotal supporting role, grounding the film’s emotional center.
Each actor contributes to Zhao’s tapestry of human experience—no character feels ornamental. Even minor figures echo the film’s themes of love, art, and mortality, forming a chorus of quiet lives touched by tragedy and creativity.
The Power of Restraint
Unlike many historical dramas, Hamnet resists the temptation to dramatize or explain too much. Its emotional force lies in its restraint. Zhao trusts her audience to feel without being told, to interpret rather than consume.
This subtlety might not appeal to those expecting grand theatrics, but for those attuned to its rhythm, the reward is profound. It’s a film that whispers rather than shouts, but its echoes linger far longer.
Watching it in the cinema, I found myself holding my breath during the quietest scenes—moments so fragile they felt sacred. In that silence, Hamnet achieves what few films manage: transcendence through empathy.
Final Verdict – A Modern Masterpiece of the Heart
Hamnet (2025) is more than a historical drama; it’s a cinematic elegy, a reflection on love and loss, and the fragile beauty of creation. Chloé Zhao has crafted a film that feels timeless yet profoundly of its moment, blending visual artistry with emotional truth.
Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal deliver performances of breathtaking intimacy, while Emerald Fennell’s writing gives the story poetic grace. Together, they’ve turned a tale of grief into a celebration of life itself.
Leaving the theater, I felt both shattered and healed—reminded that cinema, at its best, doesn’t just tell stories. It gives them back to us, whole again, in light and shadow.
Final Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)
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