a review of Hamnet

This is a film that looks at the creative spark of William Shakespeare through imagining the lives of the ones closest to him. Before he went to London and authored his great works, we see what had formed him as a man: a member of the working class, a man with ambitions, but no clear plan how to realize them. He is captivated by a woman with a family background in nature magic and herbalism far from the city. They marry and have children at a time of plague and it is the impact of the childhood illnesses that powers the plot. A line is drawn between the tragedy of a child lost to the directly towards the tragedy he comes to write. The strength of this movie is in the performances, not as a historical account.