While verbose, most Shakespeare when broken down to plot points is incredibly straight forward. Boy and girl from different sides of a skirmish fall in love, king makes increasingly unwise decisions at the behest of his wife, two people who seem like opposites actually make a compelling match. They’re all pretty over the plate when all is said and done. It’s part of what makes them easy overlays for things like 10 Things I Hate About You, The Lion King, or She’s the Man. The structures are not only simple, but they are familiar, so it’s not immediate that these works are recognized for being Shakespearean.

This trend is also visible in stories about Shakespeare, Best Picture Winner Shakespeare in Love had a familiar structure to it, and was well enough regarded to oust the front runner (Saving Private Ryan) from the prize. Now we have yet another picture that in some ways feel familiar, and in some ways brand new with Academy Award Winner Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet. A fictional recounting of Willian Shakespeare’s family, based on the book by the same name. The film centers around Agnes (Jessie Buckley), a woman who will one day fall in love with young William and bear his three children, Judith, Susanna, and Hamnet.

During the building of their family we see much of what will be influence on William’s famous plays. His wife’s more mystical upbringing feels like what will be the trappings for the fortunes and witches of plays like MacBeth or Midsummer Night’s Dream. His courtship of Agnes is a messy one, as she is from a higher class than he, and as they begin their love he puts the finishing touches on Romeo & Juliet. As we see the film nod at these works it feels like old friends passing by. Most of them are passing references, rather than the full zoom in of modern fan service.

As William finds his passion, Agnes remains in tune with the natural world, preferring to stay on their farm near the river whenever Willain ventures into London to put on his shows. She raises their children with love, and fully respects her husbands drive to present the works that will one day change the world. But even as she shies away from the spotlight and the hubub of the city, before William comes home The Black Plague comes to find her and her children. As they wrestle with the disease, we know that not all of them will pull through. Shakespare is known for his comedies and his tragedies in equal measure after all.

Much like the plays, the structure of this is familiar. It goes down a road that MacBeth followed all the way to his demise. Even as it does so with mythical cinematography, and Paul Mescal delivering Hamlet monologues as it does. It feels disingenous to say that it’s rote, but even more so to call any aspect of the movie surprising. And while there is magic in the words that make up the story, they are far a flung to be compared to Billy’s body of work. The comparisons do not help it stand up to scrutiny.

Much like Shakespeare in Love, Hamnet has long sequences of characters performing Shakespeare. It is an unfortunate hazard of making a a play about the bard that at some point you will be forced to put his work inside your own and hope that the latter can bear the weight. And while Hamnet is gorgeously shot, many of the shots that Zhao uses are the masterful close ups of her actors faces that we’ve come to expect from the director, and magnificently performed by Mescal and Buckley, it is most likely impossible to put your script next to Hamlet and have people think they are of equal worth. It’s a tragedy worthy of the poet from Stratford that one cannot tell that story without putting in a monologue comparing death to an undiscovered country, a feat no one can hold a candle to. I suppose Star Trek VI does it, but they really just throw it in the title. But even with all that, Hamnet is still gorgeous, poetic, and masterful all the same.

4/5