"Hamnet," a devastating period drama about the life of William Shakespeare and his family, won top prize Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The heart-wrenching movie stars Paul Mescal as Shakespeare, who tries to forge a career as a playwright while his wife Agnes -- played by Jessie Buckley -- contends with the perils of plague and childbirth in Elizabethan England.

It comes from Chloe Zhao, who directed 2020's Oscar-winning "Nomadland." Securing the Toronto award, on top of glowing reviews, confirms "Hamnet" as another Academy Award frontrunner.

The film is based on a novel by Maggie O'Farrell, which colors in the gaps of the little we know about the Shakespeares.

"Maggie's novel, it was like a poem," Zhao told AFP.

Novel and film speculate that Agnes encouraged Will

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