When you stop to consider the more than rich relationship that William Shakespeare has had with Hollywood, via the numerous film versions and adaptations of his works, or the countless films that have been inspired by his plays, it’s funny to note how few are the films that dwell on the Bard himself, recounting his life.

Shakespeare in Love (1998) would most likely be the first to come to mind, and the 71st Academy Awards showed their love for the film. It garnered 13 nominations and won 7, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Gwyneth Paltrow, Best Supporting Actress for Judi Dench, Best Screenplay, and so on. And you might remember Kenneth Branagh in All Is True (2018), which depicted events after the Globe Theatre burned down, and could have been subtitled Shakespeare in Retirement. Less popular is Anonymous (2011), which argued that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, actually wrote the plays attributed to William.

And now we have Hamnet (2025), based on the 2020 best-selling novel of Maggie O’Farrell. Along with Director Chloe Zhao, O’Farrell co-wrote this screenplay. The film is nominated in 8 categories for next month’s Oscars, and smart money would have it taking home a good number, the safe bet being that of Best Actress for Jessie Buckley, who portrays Agnes Hathaway, wife of William and mother to his three children - an elder daughter, Susanna, then the twins Hamnet and Judith.

So little historical record exists about Agnes (Buckley) and William (Paul Mescal) that it was fertile ground for O’Farrell to plant seeds and conjure a fictionalized version of the couple's married life and the family life they enjoyed or endured. What little facts that do exist recount how Hamnet passed away from sickness at the tender age of 11; and that Hamlet was written and staged soon after, possibly as a tribute to Shakespeare’s son, and the loss he suffered.

The true magic of the novel and this film is how it fleshes out the Agnes character, such that she’s the true center and ‘gravity’ of this story. If motherhood and the heartbreak of loss were to be explored in a film that will move us in an extreme manner, then this Hamnet would be one of the finest examples of how this can be achieved.

Jessie Buckley as Agnes is quite literally and metaphorically a force of nature. She inhabits this Agnes in an astounding, mercurial manner. Like a pendulum, she will swing from iron-willed and obstinate to vulnerable and as delicate as the finest china. It is a tour de force of acting: emotionally raw yet transcendent. And the last scenes alone will prove how well deserved the accolades that have come so far this year are for the actress.

From the moment that Mary (Emily Watson), Shakespeare’s mother, warns her son that Agnes is the daughter of a forest witch, we are putty in Agnes’ hands, as she’s become the most interesting of protagonists. Her life is measured by her own personal ‘song’, and it’s a tune that enchants the more than willing Shakespeare.

Joe Alwyn is on board as Bartholomew Hathaway, brother of Agnes; and look out for the ingenious bit of casting that has child actor Jacobi Jupe take on the role of Hamnet, and his real-life older brother Noah Jupe, portray the actor who plays Hamlet at the Globe Theatre premiere of the tragedy.

This concept of taking a known storyline and viewing it from the fresh perspective of a minor character is not new. From Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to the movie Ophelia (2018), we have seen Hamlet get that treatment. And now we have the man, Shakespeare, and the play Hamlet, but from the eyes of the woman who would have had to share with William the real-life tragedy.

Above all, this film is a gut-punch affirmation of the magic of Art - of the process by which a play, a painting, a novel, is created and how it moves people in different ways. Chloe Zhao’s masterful handling of the material, and how it’s shot, are enough reasons for watching this film when it opens in cinemas on Feb. 18.