Rent Hamnet (2025)

Zhao Finds the Light in Loss - Hamnet review by griggs

Hamnet glows from within, illuminating the fragile spaces between love, loss, and legacy. Chloé Zhao turns Shakespeare’s family tragedy into poetry in motion — all candlelight, quiet, and the ache of things unsaid. Her direction feels both weightless and sure-footed, transforming domestic grief into something universal. Every silence carries the pulse of a world changed by absence.

Jessie Buckley is mesmerising as Agnes, her sorrow fierce and unguarded — a performance that burns with life. Opposite her, young Jacobi Jupe gives a quietly astonishing turn as Hamnet: not just a child marked by fate, but the spark that ignites legend itself.

Zhao shapes Maggie O’Farrell’s novel into something tactile and timeless — cinema that breathes. Hamnet isn’t just about mourning; it’s about how love survives its own ending. A masterpiece that whispers where others would wail.

Beautiful & Captivating Romance Drama - Hamnet review by GI

A genuinely captivating film, a romantic fantasy that has been adapted from a novel and imagines that William Shakespeare wrote his most famous play, Hamlet, as a consequence of his grief over the death of his young son. The film begins in a languid, almost ethereal way as it follows Agnes (Jessie Buckley) beginning with her sleeping foetal like at the base of two trees with co-joined roots. She is a child of the forest with a reputation as a 'forest witch'. Her beauty attracts a blossoming poet, Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), and they become lovers and then marry with Agnes already pregnant. Later they have twins, one of whom Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) is the apple of his father's eye. As Shakespeare's writing gains more fame he spends more time in London and whilst away tragedy strikes at home. Agnes reacts to William's subsequent return to London with anger but she discovers he's been expressing his deep grief in a new play. It has to be stressed this is not a historical biopic but it's a powerful fictional study of human connection, of loss and anguish. Buckley is captivating with every look, gesture and word expressing a deep emotional presence that makes the film heart wrenching at times. Mescal is also equally superb here portraying the male reluctance for outward emotion but bringing the depths of his pain in every nuance of his performance. This is a beguiling and beautiful film with two of the most talented actors of our time. A must see.