One of the best films, if not the best of the current awards season, is Hamnet, which gives us a fictionalized account of the reality behind the conception of William Shakespeare's longest work, Hamlet... and many people don't know this today, but Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet, and although there are many theories about what happened, there are things we do know: one of his three children died at the age of 11, this child possibly died of the plague although there is no clear record, and of course, due to the similarity of the name, it is believed that the play Hamlet was named after his deceased son.

Although it is clearer that the play is an English adaptation of its time of the myth of Amleth in the Viking era, which already received an incredible adaptation in The Northman, it is very possible that the grief of his loss was the main driving force to generate not only the greatest work, but also, we could say, one of the most well-known and that remains to this day as one of the main inspirations for creating theater or cinema.

From Pages To Images: Maggie O'Farrell My Little House

And this is where Hamnet comes in, a film based on the novel written by Maggie O'Farrell, who not only wrote the book that conquered the literary public, but also produced the film, making sure that her vision was not lost on the journey from pages to images. And you can tell, because you rarely see a literary adaptation that respects the soul of the original material so much without falling into the trap of copying every line or betraying the spirit with unnecessary changes.

The direction is in the hands of someone who understands that emotional cinema doesn't need to shout to be heard, that silences count as much as dialogue, that the camera can hold a gaze long enough for you, as a spectator, to feel the weight of what is happening. There is no rush, no anxiety to cut to the next scene before you process the previous one. Each shot seems to breathe with intention, each frame has a reason to exist, and the cinematography doesn't just capture Elizabethan England, it captures the texture of grief: the light filtered through windows, the shadows stretching in corners, the muted colors that reflect loss.

This is what happens when a writer protects her work and when a direction understands that adapting is not translating word for word, but capturing the emotion that lived on the pages and turning it into flesh, bone, tears, and breath on screen. You can really see O'Farrell's hand in every production decision, you can see that she made her story respected, and that's rare, because Hollywood has the habit of devouring books and spitting out products. That didn't happen here.

The Cinema That Will Not Die

In some reviews I've talked about how in modern cinema it seems that they want to do everything like a TikTok reel: fast cuts, excessive action, and moments that simply cannot be digested as they should within your emotions, but Hamnet comes to demonstrate that emotional cinema is still here, it lets you digest the scenes, the camera work, the silences... mental processes occur, they are not boring or unnecessary, but rather become part of the very soul of the film, you don't wait for the scene to advance because with expressions and sounds you become part of the film, you become one with what the characters are going through.

When there is happiness they let you absorb it, when there is sadness they let you feel it, and when it is a moment to reflect and empathize, they let you create your own feelings and thoughts... not only that, but it also allows you to guess or get into the minds of the characters as if it were a literary work, and that is the magic of respecting what at the time was theater or, even better, the written book. The entire film is like watching a live theatrical play, but with the intimacy that only cinema can give you.

When The Past Speaks And You Understand

Let's also talk about the period setting... if it is already difficult for the modern audience to understand why different ways of seeing the world exist, it is even more difficult to do so when it comes to other eras, many times people focus more on how wrong things were or on what differentiated them and why what they did and thought was wrong, instead of just transporting you to the context. That doesn't happen here, because at no point does it feel like a discourse on what is right or wrong, there is simply a discourse on what is happening and what the characters feel...

We become more spectators of life than of knowledge, we become at the same time a being or an entity that understands that what matters is what we perceive and how we react to it before what should happen, we adapt and strengthen ourselves as people for what we are and not for what we are forced to be, and that is a breath of fresh air to modern art.

Childhood That Does Not Act

Speaking of performances, there is nothing more to say than that it is an excellent demonstration that non-exaggeration and emotional delivery are the best thing that can happen in any work, and here every member of the cast perfectly understands that balance.

Among the youngest we have Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet and Olivia Lynes as Judith, where their emotions and their actions are so natural that you don't see acting, you see a family, you see children who enjoy being themselves and who interact with a family, and yes, that is quite important because we see future in them, not only as actors, but within the same story they move you, you see them grow and you wish the best for them.

The Voice Of The Simple Man And Love Disguised

Among the greats, of course we will talk about Paul Mescal, demonstrating that within the story you don't need to have great renown or be extremely loved by a fan base to be successful... he knew how to choose this project that, in my opinion, fit him like a glove, he doesn't deliver a spectacular performance, but rather delivers a human performance, he speaks with the voice of a simple man, he moves with the expressions of a lover of the craft, he embraces with the affection of a man who seeks nothing more than love and looks at you with the eyes of a being who lost part of his life but understands that there is still more to live. It is simply extraordinary, and it makes you as humanity see beyond the simple letters of a playwright, but rather lets you see the soul of a being who lost, but who learns to live with it.

And this is where we now enter with Jessie Buckley as Agnes, Shakespeare's wife, who from her first scene is nothing more than love disguised as mysticism... her performance is so pristine and so perfect that you see the eyes, the arms, the affection of your own mother, you understand where she comes from, where she is going, that a free spirit often comes from love and understanding before rebellion and anarchy, that her words are full of wisdom not of time in this world, but of experiences in it and of knowing how to listen to those who came before you...

And her love not only for her children, but for life itself, for nature and for her life partner is what moves the world, and not the world as planet Earth, but the world as the land on which the dreams and hope of those around her tread, because in the end home is not four walls, but what you build with your heart.

And beyond her performance, the character construction from the script is so fantastic that her frustrations become yours, you understand her thoughts even if you don't agree with them or know that they are not entirely accurate as a spectator, but not because she is exaggerated or "woman" as many current thoughts make things seem, but rather demonstrates that pain is expressed in different ways, just as love is too, and that you cannot judge someone with the same parameters of what life should be for you.

Two Sides Of The Same Coin

Hamnet teaches us that pain and love are just two sides of the same coin, we cannot love without it hurting and we cannot perceive pain without having loved: a home, a family, a child, a husband, a mother, or even our work, everything has a cost although sometimes we don't know what it will be, what we can decide is who accompanies us in paying that debt...

Freedom comes not when it is given to us or when we die, but when we decide to take it from our own ghosts and demons, and the fact that someone does not express things as you expect does not mean that they do not go through the same feelings as you, because sometimes we expect empathy to come to us when we don't realize that for that we first have to show empathy towards others.

The Ghosts That Make Us Human

That is Hamnet: a song to life itself, a song to letting go, a claim to life but also a gratitude to it.

Because the ghosts that come out of the cave are just that, ghosts... life itself is full of color and emotions, feeling them makes us part of something greater, makes us part of believing in something beyond ourselves, unity and love.