About Hamnet No Shakespeare

Post 1941:

I love a bit of Shakespeare, but by no means am I an expert. Honestly, there are scenes and language in his plays so profoundly, obviously beautiful, it makes me think every word is genius.

Problem is, I won’t pretend I comprehend every line. This makes me frustrated. Yes, I could sit down with the text, study the story and its source material, brush up on my Greek and Latin and Italian references, study acting, build a theater, wear tights, but that seems like a lot to fully enjoy a story.

Hamnet is a movie about Hamlet. Same thing. But not the same thing. Go with it.

I thought this was an interesting movie. Very sad, pretty artsy, maybe a little too self-important. The characters did some stuff I didn’t understand. It’s really about motherhood and women things, so obviously I got all those parts.

I’ll say if you want lots of emotion and an interesting look at the life one of culture’s great geniuses, this is okay. In emphasizing his wife, they do him a down a bit. I could argue that the humanization of The Bard is a good thing and a bad thing. It’s both things, really.

Mrs. Shakespeare is quite the lady. Fiercely loving, combustible, totally independent, herbalist, church-rejectionist, soothsayer, gardener, and one with all creation. Compared to her, old Bill is pretty average.

I get what they were going for. Her character was challenging to identify with, at times. And yeah, I understood the nature of her visions and all that. This was decent storytelling. And ultimately filmmaker was devoted to doing a bit. Hamlet is recontextualized. Pretty snazzy idea.

I liked the actor who played Bill. Actually, his limits as a man and a father were really well portrayed. The wife was played by an actress doing lots of acting. That’s one way to go. She certainly isn’t mailing it in.

Points for acting, cinematography, and a story that knew what it wanted to do. That’s better than most things these days, but it ain’t exactly Shakespeare. Cheers and see you after.