I walked into Hamnet with restless anticipation. Everyone had praised it, everyone had said it was one of the best films of the year, maybe even the best film of the year. I carried that excitement with me into the theater, and I wanted to believe it. I wanted to be swept away, to feel something that would stay with me long after the credits roll, something that would live inside me.
Hamnet was written and directed by Chloé Zhao, co-written by Maggie O’Farrell based on her own novel, and starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, and Emily Watson.
Chloé Zhao did not surprise me. She gave me what she always gives: a style I cannot connect with, a way of telling stories that feels deliberately restrained, almost stubbornly quiet. She seems to search for the most muted way to tell a story and then hold onto it, refusing to let go. And I don’t like it. I don’t like her films, and I don’t like her storytelling.
But I cannot deny her artistry. The cinematography is gorgeous. She composes shots with an eye that is both painterly and strange. The way she moves the camera can be breathtaking, and at the same time baffling. She will place the camera on a door, or on a decoration, while the actors speak in the background. She will let us watch silence instead of the scene. It is beautiful, yes, but it is also odd. And I was ready to dislike Hamnet the way I have disliked her other work.
The Scene That Broke Me
Then came the moment. Hamnet, watching his sister grow weaker, sensing death circling near, chooses to take her sickness into himself. He gives his life so she can live. He dies in agony. I don’t know if this moment is drawn from history or from imagination, but it shattered me.
And then the final scene: Shakespeare and Agnes, trying to reconcile their loss through the play he wrote, Hamlet. Two scenes. Only two. But they turned the film inside out for me. They turned me inside out. It is rare for only two moments to change how I see a film, but these did.
Wrestling With Death
From that point forward, I couldn’t stop thinking about death. How harsh it is. How impossible it feels to accept.
How do we live with the fact that it takes away those we love most? How do we move on, laugh again, smile again, when every corner of the house reminds us of what is gone? When every date on the calendar marks absence instead of presence?
How can we accept the cruelty of a child dying in agony, as Hamnet did? How can we reconcile with that? What would we do to take the pain away? What would we give to make them suffer less? If we had any power at all, wouldn’t we extend their days, extend kindness, extend life itself?
I cannot accept death. I cannot reconcile with it.
And as I cried, I remembered all the ones I’ve lost. Some died in peace, but most in pain. They are gone, and I don’t know where they are. All I know is they are not here anymore. I miss them. I wish they were still here. I wish I could see them again. I wish I could hold them, speak to them, tell them one more story, share one more laugh. But I cannot. And that impossibility is unbearable.
Fear and Memory
And I am terrified. Terrified of losing anyone else. Terrified of watching anyone I love suffer. Terrified of watching my children suffer. The thought alone is enough to hollow me out, to make me want to cling to every moment, every breath, every smile, as if holding them tightly could keep death away.
Hamnet’s death brought all of this back. Tears in my eyes, memories flooding, carried on the melancholic notes of Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight. I listened to it on the drive home. I listened as I wrote. I listened, and I cried.
Because how can death ever be acceptable? How can we reconcile with it? How can we live with it? How can we wake each morning knowing it waits for us, waits for those we love, waits to take them away?
I don’t know. I don’t know how to live with it. I don’t know how to accept it. I don’t know how to forgive it.
And maybe that is the truth Hamnet left me with; not answers, not closure, but the unbearable weight of questions. Questions that echo with every note of Richter’s strings. Questions that remind me of every face I’ve lost, every memory I cannot let go, and every fear I cannot silence.
The music rises, and the questions rise with it.
The strings swell, and my grief swells with them.
The melody circles back, and my memories circle back with it.
I cannot accept death.
I cannot reconcile with it.
I cannot forgive it.
And yet, I keep listening.
I keep crying.
I keep remembering.
Because maybe the only way to live with death is to keep asking, to keep mourning, to keep letting the tears flow; until the music fades, until the daylight breaks, until silence returns.
