🎥 Just watched Hamnet in the movie theatres. Deserves a full blog post, but want to get my thoughts off before Oscars. Here are my first thoughts:
Ezra Pound once wrote that “beauty is a brief gasp between two cliches.” Hamnet is a story that braves the perilous path of a very cliched time period, but finds the gasps with a frequency that can only be attributed to great artistry. The triumph of the picture is that it successfully earns the audience’s submersion into the dirty, odorous, and oppressive Elizabethan era. Most notably, and absolutely central to the main theme, is how the people from this time period live in constant proximity to death. Things are always dying—and dying near to us. Modern society is so sanitized and anything that might conjure a memento mori is banished without question. Hamnet, however, let’s the Grim Reaper play the lead and cast his very large shadow over every scene. By doing so, director Chloe Zhao earns the moments that, in my estimation, can only be described as hope-filled magic. The story is ultimately a revolving door—a continual turning over of heartbreak, hope, and heartbreak in rapid succession. If you have ever been touched by grief or healed by goodness, you’ll be familiar with the pattern.
Lastly, all the actors are brilliant (even Joe Alwyn). Paul Mescal has never performed better and the children actors conducted themselves like veterans. Jessie Buckley was on another level though. Her performance was both elegant and transcendent, and deserves to be given its flowers because, for the last 8-10 years, it’s become very popular to make films that somewhat disparage mothers. Thus, it lightened my soul to see such a believable depiction of a wild and free-spirited mother who is somehow bold, independent, intelligent, emotional, and whimsical while still being fiercely loyal, humble, and grounded. Well done.
I may feel differently about this tomorrow, but it is certainly how I feel about it today.