By C. Ramsay
Unexpectedly, this came across much more as a horror film leeching from the elements of a traumatic family drama than it did as purely an overwrought romance. Many other horror films came to mind during the runtime, including The Witch, Midsommar, and Mother!, but none more so than Antichrist. There is a world that exists outside of the core family, and other people we see them regularly interacting with, yet they feel ultimately, and unknowingly, confined to their tableaux, unable to integrate into broader society in any meaningful way for the audience to see. It’s as if they live within one of the miniatures from Hereditary, toiling endlessly toward some sort of meaning, some stability, in a world that can only support incomprehensible grotesquery masked by striking beauty. Agnes, Will, and their children are players who are unaware of their roles, trapped in a Hellish limbo, and fated to process loss in incompatible ways.
The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which Orpheus tries and fails to retrieve his partner from the underworld, is introduced early on in the film and regularly evoked as a through line as the familial hardships worsen, but this is not the only embedded mythology. Death, too, is conveyed as a character through camera motion—always present, always hovering, but quiet, patient, and waiting. Yet, this characterization is obfuscated as being distinct from the audience due to the shared perspective. We are, and it is, unable to leave the family. We know what we are here for, and though we may wish otherwise, we get exactly that.
Hamnet is not a film about William Shakespeare and his work, and while the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is most overtly referenced, the film is only passively about Will and Agnes as a couple, and only passively about Will’s relationship with his children other than to more prominently highlight what Agnes has endured. The weight of the story is most notably on her shoulders, in how she tries desperately to hold the family together at the expense of herself, and in how she struggles with her inability to do so. Comparatively, William is portrayed as hyperactive, self-absorbed, and absent. Where Agnes sacrifices herself for their family, Will sacrifices the family for his potential acclaim. His methods of processing conceal his absenteeism to his audience, and justify it to his wife, though outside of the context of his plays they hold no emotional ground. They are a façade of respite, of manipulated care and emotional connection, that swell with meaning within a limited time frame only to be identified as memorable but fleeting by curtain call. Where William’s grief results in a turn to the masses through art, resulting in centuries of renown because of the work he bestowed, he can be taken as a Promethean figure. Agnes, on the other hand, is distinctly Sisyphean, attempting to hold Death at bay, but doomed to a nihilistic, at times surrealist nightmare of a microcosm that’s built around perpetually waiting on a husband and father who will only ever care more about his work than those who inspire it.
Fundamentally, the turmoil and family dynamics in Hamnet can best be summed by quoting one of Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquies, though from Macbeth rather than Hamlet: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”
Star rating (/5): ★★★★½
Recommend?: Yes