To Ham or Not to Ham

After not seeing it as part of Moviepalooza, we went and saw Hamnet last weekend. We wound up seeing it at the Coolidge Corner Theater, a venerable Boston-area independent movie house. Our local megaplex only had it opening weekend, as far as I can tell.

I'm glad we made the trip, as this was a pretty impressive bit of filmmaking. It's been a while since I read the book, but I feel like the adaptation was able to get all of the important parts right while not making it feel like things were missing (I think the book had more on Shakespeare's life in London and on Agnes's relationship with her brother, but I never felt like I needed more of either in the movie). It helps when the novelist is one of the co-adaptors.

It also helps to have a cast with this sort of depth. Lots of (deserved) Oscar talk for Jessie Buckley's portrayal of Agnes, while Paul Mescal gets more mileage out of Shakespeare's semi-absent father than most actors could. I also liked Emily Watson's performance as Shakespeare's mother and Jacobi Jupe as Hamnet.

There are a few reviews that have used the term "grief porn" or something similar to describe the anguish that Agnes exhibits on (spoiler alert?) Hamnet's death, but I didn't find it excessive, especially given Agnes's experience with her own mother. I think it's also important to have Agnes be that grief-stricken as it makes the revelation she has at the theater about how and why Shakespeare wrote Hamlet that much stronger.

Where we were at an independent theater we did not get Nicole Kidman, but we did get some classic bumpers (including "Let's all go to the lobby" sung by the concessions who apparently want to be eaten). We also only got two previews, one for The Testament of Ann Lee (seen previously, and which we'll probably have to go back to the Coolidge to see) and one for No Other Choice, a Korean film where an unemployed paper executive decides to ensure his hiring for a new job by eliminating the competition... literally. It looks pretty good, honestly.