Menu
For being arguably the most influential storyteller in the English language, William Shakespeare is nearly absent in movies. Of course, there are endless adaptations of and riffs on his work — everything from Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet” to teen-centric modernizations (“O,” “10 Things I Hate About You”) — but as a central character, the Bard is basically a blank.
Well, he was. The hotly anticipated “Hamnet,” out Nov. 26, imagines the writer’s inner life with vividly naturalistic detail. Directed by Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and based on the 2020 novel “Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zhao, the movie is already being tipped as a top Oscar contender by awards prognosticators.
“Hamnet” traces Shakespeare’s (Paul Mescal) life from his courtship of wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) through the raising of their three children. When his son, Hamnet, dies at age 11, it ignites the creation of a certain immortal play that sounds a lot like his name. The larger point Zhao and O’Farrell are making is that the pain of losing a child echoes through centuries in what is widely considered Shakespeare’s greatest work.
“Shakespeare in Love” is nothing if not a product of its Y2K era. Directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard, the 1998 film makes a game attempt to re-create the grimy atmosphere of late-1500s London, albeit in a manner that’s far from “Hamnet’s” visual rawness. But it’s essentially a bubbly rom-com dressed up as a period piece.
“I thought [Joseph Fiennes, playing Shakespeare] was great,” O’Farrell says. “He’s so lively and intense.” Gwyneth Paltrow — coincidentally set to appear in another Oscar contender this season, “Marty Supreme” — is undeniably charming too, as Shakespeare’s unattainable crush Viola.
It certainly paid off with Oscar voters: Though just about everyone predicted that Steven Spielberg’s World War II epic “Saving Private Ryan” would take home best picture at the 1999 Oscars, “Shakespeare in Love” pulled off the upset. It also picked up trophies for actress (Paltrow), supporting actress (Judi Dench), original screenplay (Norman and Stoppard), art direction, costume design (three-time winner Sandy Powell) and score.
The sweep was no doubt helped by a typically aggressive awards campaign by Miramax and now-disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, which Vanity Fair called a “bully campaign.”
While the critical reception was and continues to be mixed, the love-crazed vision of Shakespeare won over audiences. Produced on a reported budget of $25 million, it earned $289 million globally, more than enough for the filmmakers to sing a sweet sonnet.
Despite a heavy hitter behind the camera in director Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day”), 2011’s “Anonymous” struggled mightily to gain traction. Its hypothetical tale suggests that a nobleman, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, actually wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. Made on a reported budget of $30 million, it grossed a paltry $15 million globally at the box office. Perhaps audiences were turned off by the “Was Shakespeare a Fraud?” messaging.
Though she hasn’t seen “Anonymous,” O’Farrell has no time for the controversial theory that Shakespeare did not author the plays we know him for. “I think that belief is entirely rooted in snobbery and classism. It seems to me that the basis of that belief is that Shakespeare wasn’t well-educated enough, because he did not have a university education,” she says. The fraudster narrative depicted by “Anonymous” is, to her mind, a “horrible manifestation of the English class system.”
Still, the ambitious filmmaking was enough for “Anonymous” to scoop up one Oscar nomination in 2012 for costume design. (It lost.)
Though it could be called “Shakespeare in Retirement,” “All Is True” in fact digs deep into the (speculative) domestic dramas of the Bard in his latter days after returning from London to Stratford-upon-Avon. Including, yes, the memory of the death of Hamnet and some juicy twists. The critically well-liked if small-scaled film was directed by none other than Shakespeare-interpreter extraordinaire Kenneth Branagh. (O’Farrell calls Branagh’s 1996 “Hamlet” her favorite Shakespeare movie adaptation ever.)
Whatever the merits of its own imaginings of the man behind “Hamlet,” “All Is True” was shut out of the Oscars, maybe due to a lack of attention. But Hamnet, and “Hamnet,” now have a major shot at the gold statuette.
