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New Podcast: Chloé Zhao's Hamnet

Published 5 months ago • 1 min read

Chloé Zhao's Hamnet is a top contender for the Oscars.

But while many found themselves weeping for large chunks of the film, I left dry-eyed.

So did my guest on today’s podcast, Angelo Muredda.

(And we’re easy criers. So we tried to figure out why this film didn’t work for us.)

Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel — which imagines a part of Shakespeare’s life we know little about, including the courtship with his wife, the death of their son Hamnet, and the possible autobiographical links to Hamlet — the film tries to map Shakespeare’s biography onto Hamlet in ways that felt…unsatisfying.

Today on the podcast, we dig into what works in the film (a short list) and what doesn’t (a longer one), and whether having read a synopsis of Hamlet on Wikipedia might actually impede your enjoyment of the film.

On this episode:

  • How the book reclaims women’s stories that are usually kept off-stage in Shakespeare’s plays — and how the film undoes that
  • Why it’s odd to insist Hamlet is “about his dead son” — when Shakespeare famously never wrote plays about just one thing
  • How the film restructures the novel to deprioritize Hamnet’s story
  • Whether Shakespeare should look a little tired or grubby after that two-day horseback commute from London to Stratford
  • Whether it’s possible to have sex on a table full of eggs and not crack any
  • How knowing your Hamlet or Shakespeare means the film offers less, not more

👉 Listen to the episode​

Cheers,

Alex

Seventh Row

Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.

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