Do Oscar voters covet a good cry? At a moment when movies struggle to capture serious awards attention, Hamnet is being lauded by critics for its emotional clout, yet also critiqued for its limited focus.

Chloé Zhao ’s movie, impeccably co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes, represents a soul-searching challenge to more raucous award rivals like One Battle After Another , the present critical favorite.

Having won a shelf full of Oscars in 2021 for her disciplined, almost austere movie Nomadland , Zhao turned to a popular novel by Maggie O’Farrell for a glimpse of Renaissance England — one that is at once bursting with cultural rebirth and haunted by the Black Death.

The Shakespeare family in Hamnet consists of young Latin tutor Will (played by Paul Mescal ), and hi

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