Inside Chloé Zhao’s Next Masterpiece: How ‘Hamnet’ Landed Paul Mescal and Steven Spielberg
By Sarah Jenkins
Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel stripped William Shakespeare of his mythic grandeur, shifting the narrative focus to his wife, Agnes (historically recorded as Anne Hathaway), and the sudden loss of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet, to bubonic plague in 1596. Translating this grief to the screen required an aesthetic far removed from traditional, stiff-collared costume dramas. Zhao, an Academy Award winner for Nomadland, brought the same tactile visual vocabulary that defined her indie roots to the muddy lanes of 16th-century Warwickshire.
Zhao collaborated directly with O'Farrell on the screenplay. Their script refuses to treat Shakespeare as an untouchable monument. He appears as a restless tutor, an indebted son, and a grieving father whose greatest masterpiece, Hamlet, emerges from deep domestic catastrophe. Filmed largely in natural light across rural England and Wales, the movie anchors its narrative in Agnes’s herbal lore and instinctive clairvoyance, allowing Buckley to command the emotional center while Mescal navigates a man fractured by sorrow.
Sarah Jenkins is a veteran tech journalist with over 12 years of experience covering artificial intelligence, mobile innovations, and digital ethics. Her insights have appeared in leading technology publications worldwide.
