Hamnet is actually the same name as Hamlet in England at the time of Shakespeare. So we are told right at the outset. This is confusing. Maybe it is meant to be confusing. Is Hamnet really Hamlet?
Agnes was reputed to be the daughter of a forest witch. She asks William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) to tell her a story that moves him. Will writes Romeo and Juliet: “What light through yonder window breaks?” That’s a pretty good response. He also writes about “the envious moon.” He tells her, I must be handfasted to you. No one else will do.” That means sort of stuck together. Lovers. Both are rebels feeling constraint by conventional rules. Will knows her family won’t approve to a marriage but he doesn’t care, because “I have no talent for waiting.” He can’t wait to make love to her either. And when his family finds out about it, because Agnes is pregnant, he insists “there is no sin in it.” How could there be?
Agnes’s mother came out of the woods. Like her mother and her mother’s mother before her. Agnes says, “The women in my family see things that others don’t.” as a result, she is a pretty good match for Will. Meanwhile Will gets her pregnant and her brother, Bartholomew, wonders why she wastes time on a pasty-faced scholar. “What use is there in that?” Agnes says, he’s got more inside of him than any man I’ve ever met.” She asks Bartholomew, “What would our mother say to us if we were afraid or uncertain. He replies, “To live with our hearts open. To shut it not in the dark but turn it to the sun.” That is living. Agnes adds, “He loves me for what I am, not for what I ought to be.” He responds, “Then marry him you shall.” Seems simple doesn’t it?
Nothing is simple in the land of Shakespeare. Her mother tells Agnes: “you defy the horror that stalks the land.” Wow. Don’t we all wish we could do that?
In the pain she remembers her own mother who died when she was young. The second child, a girl, dies. Agnes vowed when her mother was dying that she would go to her church but would not say a word there. She feeds her son. She is told her daughter went to heaven but she does not believe that. She nurses both to life.
Will and his father argue and the father hits the son. Then makes it clear to him, “that is the last time you ever hit me.” It turns out his father is a brute. Will is afraid he is also a violent and dangerous man like his father, but Agnes insists he is a good man. He says, “I’ve lost my way.” It sure looks like Shakespeare has lost his way, but not really. Agnes knows that he needs distance from his father. She wants him to go to London. Will needs the world. He’s got a lot inside of him, as she knows. And he needs his art.
Will got a job making gloves for the theatre. Not good for the finest writer in English history, but it’s a job and Will turns out to be a good business man as well as a great playwright. How is it possible to be both a great businessman and great playwright? Shakespeare did it. Meanwhile the kids are running around yelling, “Fair is foul and foul is fair”, sounding like one of Shakespeare’s witches.
Later as Judith, the second daughter lies sick with the pestilence, Hamnet gives his life to save his sister. He promises that he will be brave and save her. Like he promised his father, Will. In the morning Hamnet is sick and Judith is better. He blows into his hands and sees the hawk up high. But it is too late for Hamnet. But he was brave. As he promised he would be. He tricked death by changing places with Judith when it came for her. A true tragic hero. He uses his talent to defeat death. Some say artists can do that too.
Agnes thought Will was wasting his life because he was missing his children’s lives. That might be true. It could be one those insane goals I have been talking about as I posted about the 10 films nominated for best picture this year. But a man who can write Hamlet deserves some slack. But how much?
Will said he is “crawling between Heaven and earth?” No perfection there. But sometimes life requires hard choices. Don’t make bad ones. You may regret them.
When Agnes goes to see Will’s home, she expects a mansion. She was told he had the largest house in the city? But he lives in a hovel of an attic. Why is that?
A man who has lost his son to death when he was not there to comfort him or say good bye to him, cannot live in a mansion. Just like my great Uncle Peter could not go to LaBroquerie to hang out in a bar when he had lived through the Russian Revolution. Both would be desecrations. Shallow responses won’t do.
When Agnes sees the play he wrote after his son died, she begins to understand. Her husband is not a dud. It was hardly a waste.
Will has brought Hamnet back to life. He has shown him. This reminded me of what Jeff Tweedy of the band Wilco said, “Creativity eats darkness.” That is what art can do. It can trick death.
After the play is over, and Hamlet is dead, first Agnes, his mother, and then everyone wants to touch and connect to Hamlet before he dies. Perhaps he lives on through them “The rest is silence.” Maybe they can trick death too.
Agnes smiles at Will. She has seen her son again, through the miracle of art. Her Hamnet has tricked death again.
After leaving the Rimouski harbour, we tried to find a place to eat. This proved difficult as our GPS was flummoxed by something and kept leading us in strange circles. She tried to make us eat at a restaurant that had bit the dust a few years ago, but eventually we found a wonderful restaurant and art gallery for breakfast. The gallery showcases the sculptures of Marcel Gagnon. They are located at Sainte-Flavie, Gaspésie (Gaspe Peninsula).
