‘Hamnet’

Directed by Chloé Zhao (PG-13)

★★★★

The “violent beauty” of Chloé Zhao’s new film “rips your soul out of your chest,” said in IndieWire . An adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell’s 2020 novel, Hamnet proposes that Shakespeare’s Hamlet was a response to the death from bubonic plague of the playwright’s similarly named young son, and the grief the movie conjures is so emotionally overwhelming that it “feels like falling in love.” Paul Mescal proves “transcendent” as Shakespeare, but the film is anchored by Jessie Buckley's astonishing performance as the dramatist’s wife , Agnes (pronounced Ann- yis), who doesn’t write but comes across as “an even more powerful creative force than her husband.”

For Zhao, who made a superhero flick after Nomadland won 2021’s Best Picture Os

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