Hamnet

Based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrel. this is a fictional tribute to the great English playwright William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) that breathes new life into the old scribe’s backstory of courting his future wife Anne ‘Agnes’ Hathaway (Jessie Buckley), their children and the likely effect on his work, Hamlet. In UK cinemas from 9 January 2026.

Paul Mescal plays William Shakespeare and is the first surprise. A man of the moment in the acting sphere but to play William Shakespeare, the receding haired playwright from the 1600s is absurd, is it not? But, this instantly feels like a modern adaption whilst still keeping all the elements of the period, thus regenerating the bard back to life in the Stratford-upon-Avon countryside with a youthful vigour that fizzes with wit and charm in his pursuit of the hand of Agnes Hathaway. The next almost as equally surprising portrayal is Agnes Hathaway, the future wife of William Shakespeare, played here by Jessie Buckley, recreating her not as the archetypal English country rose but as a dirty faced tomboy with a love of falconry who has a close connection to nature bordering on witchcraft.

This is what captivates the imagination of a young William Shakespeare and the couple embark on a forbidden love all of their own and a speedy marital consummation ensues leading to their three children Susanna and the twins Hamnet and Judith. The sweet family dynamic showing the playful affection of the doting mother and father is disrupted when the father has to go to London to work and the children are not without the health troubles of the time, that strike the family with great tragedy when Hamnet dies. A mother and father’s grief drive the couple apart as the father pours himself into his work to deal with it in the only way he knows how.

Even if the connection of grief with the bard’s work is not anything new director Chloé Zhao pulls off this fictional account of the UK’s master story teller’s rise to prominence and family life with an understated but overwhelming effect. How much a historical biography should be faithfully adhered to is perhaps the prerogative of each story teller especially when there is little but conjecture to be exploited and when it is done with such intelligent inferences it is hard to argue with and deserves a cinematic curtain bow.