Why Hamnet Should Win the Academy Award for Best Picture | Oscars

HeyOn paper, it already looks like the most Oscar-winning film of all time. A film about a visionary man whose genius made him one of the greatest figures in literature. Paul Mescal is played by William Shakespeare, an actor who leaves no demographic unaffected by his obscene levels of charisma. However, Hamnet marginalizes these two men in supporting roles. The film is about Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, who had long been viewed as a buxom, illiterate woman and unworthy of attention – and who was abandoned by Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon when he moved to London.

Anne in Hamnet is referred to as Agnes, as she was also known, and is played by Jessie Buckley, an Irish actress who can play a lamppost and make you feel its pain. We meet Agnes sleeping in the roots of an old tree. She may be illiterate, but she is a talented herbalist who makes medicines from plants and keeps a falcon. She’s her own woman—fierce, intelligent, and more than suitable for the man she calls her “Latin teacher.” Shakespeare’s mother warns him that his bride is a forest witch.

The film is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s book, What If, which embarks on an imaginative journey of scattered historical facts. What is known is that in 1582, Shakespeare, aged 18, married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant, in a wedding ceremony. Then, in 1596, the couple’s 11-year-old son Hamnet, a twin, died, most likely of the plague. A few years later, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, giving its tragic hero a different name for his dead son. O’Farrell co-wrote the film with its director, Chloe Zhao. It is a film with a huge female gaze behind it.

Some fans were upset by the lack of historical facts. Was Anne/Agnes really a feminist falconer? Probably not. But this is certainly less objective than vilifying her as a stupid predator who lured Shakespeare into a marriage trap. Buckley is a dead cert for Best Actress at the Oscars. In itself, the howl of grief she emits after her son’s death should swell the statue. It’s an amazing moment.

Buckley aside, Hamnett’s Oscar bid faced a small backlash, as it was criticized for being emotionally manipulative grief porn – one of those films that leads you into a puddle of tears and commands you to cry. I’m usually rude in movies, but I never shed a tear over Hamnet. However, I was reminded of my GCSE history lesson about a cholera outbreak in Victorian London. My teacher confidently asserted that women at that time could not have mourned the death of their children so deeply because the infant mortality rate was so high. Even at fifteen this seemed terrible.

What Hamnet does is reveal the inner lives of all the Annes and Agneses. And what a sparkling inner life Buckley brings to the screen. In fact, all the characters were played beautifully. Emily Watson gives Shakespeare’s strict, comedic mother depth and feeling. Agnes’s brother, played by Joe Alwyn, who doesn’t bat an eye when she becomes pregnant out of wedlock, is the ally a 16th-century woman should have had. Even Paul Mescal isn’t too shabby.