The Play’s The Thing – – Hamnet (2025, USA/UK, Color, 135 min) – – 28 November 2025

Strongly Recommended. The oldest function of drama is “catharsis,” the use of difficult stories to expel hurtful feelings by watching them performed on stage. This has been true from Medea, through Macbeth, to Chinatown. Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) has directed the utmost meta-cathartic story, using Maggie O’Farrell’s eponymous, best-selling novel, which focused on Shakespeare’s most powerful drama, Hamlet. O’Farrell’s unproven idea is that the play was a cathartic exercise coming from the death of Shakespeare’s young son, Hamnet. This works on screen because of Jessie Buckley’s (The Lost Daughter) passionate performance as Shakespeare’s wife Agnes. Alternating between pagan rapture and profound pain, Buckley heart-rends without ever descending into melodrama. In part, she is grounded by Paul Mescal’s (Gladiator II) well-played turn as Shakespeare. Also very good are brothers, Jacobi and Noah Jupe. Hamnet is the best representation of loss, guilt and grief seen all year, and a certain multiple Oscar nominee.