Hamnet

The central premise of Chloé Zhao’s film, based on a novel by Maggie O’Farrell, is that Shakespeare used Hamlet to come to terms with the pain of losing his son. William Shakespeare did indeed have a son who died young, named Hamnet. Zhao, however, is less interested in William Shakespeare than in his wife Anne Hathaway, who is called Agnes here and is a sort of semi-mythical force of nature – part country girl, part witch, part sexy ingénue, part embodied passion. Magic is at play; ghosts and soul-swapping are hinted at; ancient curses and incantations are uttered.