Justin Chang

The chief focus isn't really Shakespeare at all, though he's sensitively played by Paul Meskel.

The heart of the movie is Anne, though here, as in certain historical documents, she's referred to as Agnes.

She's played by an extraordinary Jesse Buckley.

Agnes is a gifted healer with a deep connection to the earth.

She's most at home wandering the woods near her family's farmhouse in Stratford-upon-Avon.

She falls into a passionate romance with William, who's tutoring her younger brothers in Latin to help out his father, a struggling glove maker.

Agnes becomes pregnant to the chagrin of both families, especially William's mother, Mary, played by a strong Emily Watson.

Even so, the two lovers marry and settle down.

Agnes gives birth to a daughter, Susanna.

But before long, William, on the verge of becoming the most celebrated writer in the English language, is feeling boxed in by sleepy Stratford.

And so Agnes selflessly sends him off to London, knowing he'll find the creative outlet he seeks there.

William is thus away when she gives birth to their twins, Hamnet and Judith.

They enjoy a happy childhood, despite their father's long absences from home.

In this scene, William prepares to say the latest of many farewells to Hamnet, who's played by Jacoby Jupe.

No, not yet.

After her clunky 2021 Marvel movie, Eternals, it's good to see Chloe Zhao back on firmer footing with Hamnet, though it isn't necessarily a film I'd have expected her to make.

With its English period setting and real-life historical figures, it's a far cry from dramas like Nomadland and Songs My Brothers Taught Me, which used a mix of fiction and non-fiction techniques to focus on little-seen corners of rural American life.

That said, there are echoes of the director's past work throughout Hamnet.

William has some of the same vocational drivenness as, say, the rodeo cowboy we meet in Zhao's film The Rider, determined to do what he was born to do.

But William's time away from home takes a heavy toll on Agnes and their children, and Hamnet is, among other things, a tense portrait of marital estrangement.