Review: Hamnet

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

There have been two great movies in recent weeks - Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value" and, now, Chloe Zhao's "Hamnet" - that have examined how lived experience can result in great art, though the latter's example is of the more extreme variety.

Based on the novel by Maggie O'Farrell, "Hamnet" does what so many other films about the Bard have done - fictionalized a moment in the life of William Shakespeare to explain how he created one of his greatest works. The Oscar winner "Shakespeare in Love" was on the light-hearted side, while Zhao's film takes a moment of great anguish and connects fictional dots to explain how he wrote what is considered to be his greatest work, "Hamlet."

Much like Zhao's earlier films, "Eternals" notwithstanding, the film is attuned to the natural settings in which the story is set. The forested area in which Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) lives with his unsupportive father and stern mother (Emily Watson) almost feels like a character - much like nature does in the films of Terrence Malick - in the picture.

It is in the woods that he meets Agnes (Jessie Buckley), whom local lore has pegged as the child of a forest witch, and becomes entranced by her. Against both of their families' wishes, they marry and have three children, two of whom are twins. Those not looking for any of the story to be spoiled should read no further - however, it's no secret that Shakespeare was devastated by the loss of his young son, Hamnet.

It doesn't help matters between William and Agnes that the former must go away for long spells to London, where he is responsible for managing a theater where he puts on his plays. It's curious that the film basically makes no mention of any other Shakespeare work other than the one that we finally see enacted near the film's end.

This is a film - much like some of Zhao's others - that requires patience. It's what you might call a slow burn, but it pays off, especially when Agnes and her supportive brother (Joe Alwyn) make a surprise visit to the theater in the months after Hamnet's death and witness the first performance of "Hamlet." The filmmakers allow the production of the play to act as a means of healing between the brokenhearted Shakespeare and his wife in an extended scene that might have not worked in the wrong hands, but is extremely powerful here.

Mescal gives one of his best performances as Shakespeare, although his character feels more like a supporting role to Buckley, who gives one of the year's best and most devastating portrayals as Agnes. There's a fair amount of drama on display, not surprisingly, after the death of their child, but it's in two other scenes that each actor especially shines - Mescal as he impatiently gives direction to actors rehearsing for "Hamlet" and Buckley as she has what appears to be an almost spiritual connection to the young man playing the Danish prince onstage.

Much like the recent "Sentimental Value" - in which a movie director who has long been a non-presence in his grown daughters' lives writes a deeply personal screenplay as a means of healing his family through the creation of a movie - "Hamnet" also explores how lived experience can result in great art. In this case, of course, that experience is a tragedy - and one that experts on the life of Shakespeare might claim is a stretch to explain the creation of "Hamlet." Whether there's any truth in this fictional account is mostly unimportant because, as art, it works.

Zhao's "Nomadland" is among the best films of the 2020s so far, but her follow up - the Marvel movie "Eternals" - was widely considered a major flop (while I wasn't particularly wild about it myself, it's not nearly as bad as all that). If she was considered to be in need of a comeback, "Hamnet" is it.

Review: Jay Kelly

Image courtesy of Netflix.

"It's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself," Sylvia Plath said. "It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all." 

This quote appears before the credits of "Jay Kelly," Noah Baumbach's latest film that stars George Clooney in the titular role of an actor who has used his profession to mostly avoid responsibility for others, the result of which is that he has one daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), who runs off to be with her friends after graduating college, rather than spend the summer with him, and another, Jessica (Riley Keough), who actively avoids him.

The only person who appears constantly by Jay's side is Ron (a very good Adam Sandler), his personal assistant who believes that his client is also his friend but whom Jay points out collects 15 percent of his earnings. As the film opens, Jay has just finished shooting a movie and is about to jump right into another - something which we are led to believe is probably common for him to avoid much downtime - when Ron tells him about a film festival in Italy that wants to give him a lifetime achievement award.

At first, Jay balks at the idea of attending the festival, but thinks twice about it when he realizes that it gives him the chance to essentially stalk Daisy and her friends as they travel around Europe. Because Jay can't travel without an entourage, he is also accompanied by a number of others in his orbit, including his agent (Laura Dern).

But before all this takes place, two important moments occur. Jay learns that the director (Jim Broadbent) whom he viewed as his mentor has died and, at his funeral, he listens as the man's son talks at great length about how his father was rarely present in his life. Then, at the funeral, Jay runs into an old pal, Timothy (Billy Crudup), with whom he started out as an actor. The two go out for drinks and the scene quickly goes south.

Clooney has long been considered one of the last Hollywood movie stars and the portrayal of the lead character gets a lot of mileage out of this. There's a scene in which he's mobbed while boarding a train in Italy - something Clooney has likely experienced in the real world - which then morphs into an amusing sequence in which Jay holds court with all of the passengers in one of the train's cars and goes as far as inviting them to the reception for him at the film festival. 

This may be due to the fact that few others in his life have any intention to attend the festival. His father (Stacy Keach) briefly shows up but there are obvious signs as to why their relationship is frosty, and his daughters want nothing to do with the occasion. Ultimately, Jay only has Ron to depend upon to attend, but Ron often speaks to Jay in the same patient mantras that he also uses toward his young children, with whom he mostly conducts a relationship over the phone as he flies all over the place with Jay.

"Jay Kelly" keeps its central character at somewhat of a remove in the present but deepens his character as he reflects upon moments in the past - most notably, reminiscing on a scene with an actress (Eve Hewson) from a film early in his career and another in which his rivalry with Timothy becomes a little clearer. It's not until the film's finale that Baumbach takes the picture in a direction that's surprisingly sentimental, considering that the film is from the director of "The Squid and the Whale" and "Margot at the Wedding."

While I wouldn't rank "Jay Kelly" among Baumbach's best, it's a very well acted film that ends up packing an emotional punch when it needs to. Clooney is solid in the titular role, Keough makes her few moments onscreen count, and Dern is very good as always, but it's Sandler who steals the show as the devoted but understandably frustrated Ron. 

It's an overall thoughtful film that takes Plath's opening quote seriously as it observes the life of a man who felt the need to fill most of his hours and years pretending to be someone else to avoid having to be himself.