Director: Chloé Zhao
Cast: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn
Have I Seen It Before: Never. This year has run so completely away from me that, to my horror, I’m getting to see very few new release this fall. I’m almost tempted to give the film a positive review only on the fact that I could fit in a screening, not go to a theater I don’t care for, and I could get everything else done I wanted to that day.
Did I Like It: Back to the question at hand. One might be tempted to say that, for all its unflinching view of the worst possible moments in a person’s life, the entire affair ends on too happy of a note. That happiness further undercuts the film’s greatest surface strengths. Centering a film on the Agnes* Hathaway (Buckley) and Hamnet** Shakespeare
(Jacobi Jupe), figures only remembered by history for their accidental association to certain playwrights*** tells their stories for the first time is a thrilling choice. They are given dimension and vibrant life all of their own, and exist beyond the tragic footnote or the frustrating anchor that history’s hero had to overcome to become William ShakespeareTM (Mescal).
But constructing the story so that they can only come to some sort of peace via the genius of their husband/father puts both characters back on the shelf where they’ve before the credits roll. This is a well-made film, with performances at the center that should receive attention at awards time.
I just wish it didn’t feel the need to put everything back the way it has been this whole time. Maybe I can move on from the ending. It helps to remember that William and Agnes hardly lived happily-ever after. But that means I have to meet the film more than halfway.
*You might know her as Anne.
**One of the big theses of the film is that spelling was less of a science and more of a moment-to-moment experience in the late-Tudor/early-Jacobean period, and it kind of all adds up, I suppose.
***Why can’t my own era be a little looser with the spelling? Because I have real opinions about how that word should be spelled.