Movie and Book Review: Hamnet

Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicenter, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns.

[Letterboxd review] Finishing the audiobook now—it’s narrated by Jessie Buckley herself (who plays Agnes Shakespeare)—and it’s transcendent. You can snag it from libro.fm through my podcast’s link. I will now protect Jessie Buckley at any cost. (Hamnet at Bookshop.org)

Hamlet is my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays. So I am in love with its backstory. This movie is lush in its appearance and its presentation. Gorgeous and full and so redolent and resonant and rich that you can smell it, it fills all of your senses with its trees and flowers and herbs and dirt and wood and leather and and and.

I am dead. Thou livest…draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.
—Hamlet, V,ii

My little brother died when I was nine and he was seven. Judith’s experience was extremely well presented and included. I am so grateful to the author and the director for not having her be a Crying Child Trope [tm], a cardboard historical insert. She was presented in her silence, in her questions, in her anger, in her full pain. I felt heard and seen. I find I can’t be more articulate about this than that.

the sound of the deceased Hamnet to his mother:

the high whine of nothing, like a church bell after it has stopped ringing

Hamnet and Judith Shakespeare were baptized 2 February, 1585 at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Hamnet Shakespeare died 11 August 1596, aged 11, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and was buried at the same church.

Judith died 9 February 1662, at the age of 77, and was buried at the same church. She outlived all three of her children: Shakespeare (6 months), Richard (21), and Thomas (19).