Pop Culture Happy Hour - Hamnet

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Hamnet tells the fictionalized account of the lives of William Shakespeare and his wife, played by Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley. They fall in love, have children, suffer an unspeakable tragedy. When their only son dies, it creates a rift in their marriage and inspires Will to write one of his greatest works–Hamlet. Directed by Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), it does everything it can to make you cry a whole lot.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hi there, it's Linda Holmes. Before we start the show, we're marking Giving Tuesday this week. NPR celebrates this global day of generosity every year, but we've never had a year quite like this one before. You've probably heard by now that federal funding for public media was eliminated as of October 1st. That means NPR is now operating without federal support for the first time in our history, more than 50 years. It's a big change and a big challenge, but it's one that we can overcome to, together. So we hope you'll take a moment to think about what you love about pop culture happy hour. Maybe we've helped you find a new show you love or made you think differently about the movie you just saw or kept you in good company while you're on a walk or getting ready for work. We're so grateful to the listeners who have already stepped up to donate like Patrick from Indiana, who says, my biggest sense of loyalty and appreciation goes to Linda, Aisha, Stephen, and Glenn at PCHH. They are all the best and I love how they have helped. the show evolve in format, broadened voices, and persisted with integrity, wishing you all the

fortitude to keep it going. Well, that is very touching, Patrick. You, if I may say, are the best. Thank you so much. Thank you to everyone else who supported NPR this year. You know I'm going to say this, but you are what's making us happy this week and every week. If you haven't yet, please make your Giving Tuesday gift right now by signing up for NPR Plus. It's a simple recurring donation that gets you perks to NPR's podcasts and bonus episodes of Pop Culture Happy Hour, where you can get a peek behind the scenes of our show. Join us at plus.npr.org. Thanks again for your support, and let's get on with the show. Hamnet tells the story of a young English couple played by Jesse Buckley and Paul Meskell.

They meet, fall in love, have children, and suffer an unspeakable tragedy. And then one of them writes Hamlet. It runs from William Shakespeare first meeting his wife to an early production of Hamlet, and along the way, it does everything it can to make you cry a whole lot. I'm Aisha Harris. And I'm Stephen Thompson. Today, we are talking about Hamnet on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us today is NPR film critic Bob Mondello.

Hey, Bob. Hey, good to be here. It is a pleasure to have you. So, in the opening scenes of Hamnet, we meet a witchy young free spirit named Annius. She's played by Jesse Buckley. Anius catches the eye of a young tutor named Will. He's played by Paul Meskell. Their story is a fictionalized account of the lives of William Shakespeare and his wife,

who's more commonly known as Anne in other accounts of her life, but we'll go with Anius here. Anius and Will have three children together, and the Will is a doting father. He's increasingly absent from the family's day-to-day lives, as he begins his career writing and producing plays in London. When their only son Hamnet, played by Jacoby Jup, dies at the age of 11, it creates a rift in their marriage and inspires Will to write one of his greatest works.

Hamnet is based on Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel of the same name, and the film was written by O'Farrell and director Chloe Jow, who previously won an Oscar for directing Nomad Land. It's in theaters now, Bob Mandello. I'm going to start with you. What did you think of Hamlet? I fell apart. I really fell apart. I saw it at the Middleburg Film Festival a few weeks ago, about 36 hours after. NPR's founding mother, Susan Stamberg, died. And I was primed for a movie about grief, and this movie is very definitely about grief. And I was, you know, I was doing fine for a long time, and we got to the end scene. And I thought I was holding it back. I thought I was holding it in.

But I was sobbing so hard that the woman sitting next to me grabbed my arm to see if I was okay. I just lost it. And I acknowledged that I was being manipulated. I mean, the moment where I lost it, I thought, oh, that is like really over the top. It didn't change the fact that it just worked for me. This is a movie that is designed for me in a way. I'm a theater critic and fan from way back. I have seen 37 or 38 Hamlets at this point.

I know this basically back to front. And so finding a new way into it. it for me was kind of fascinating. So yeah, I'm with it 107%. All right. How about you, Ayesha? Well, I saw this at the Toronto International Film Festival a couple months ago, and afterwards, I had to check my pulse to make sure I was still alive because I left this feeling cold. I left this feeling unmoved. And this is maybe a me problem because everyone in my theater, and this was a packed theater, you could hear the sobs, you could hear the sniffling. It was like just a sea wave of sniffles and just uncontrollable

crying. There were a whole bunch of Bob Mandellos there. Yeah, a whole bunch of Bob Mandela's in the audience, and there is me, the cold, icy-hearted, not into this person. You know, we can talk a little bit about this, but I think one of my biggest issues with this film is Paul Mescal's performance. And of kind of have this weird relationship with him where I can't quite figure out if he's as good as everyone else seems to think he is or if he's just kind of finding himself as an actor. He's still relatively young and he's still relatively new to film acting. So Stephen, I'm so curious to hear how this hits you because as we like to tease you about it, as you like to tease yourself about you are the type of person who is primed for this. You are a dad. You cried a lot of things.

Tell me, tell me why was I so cold? Well, I was laughing with a colleague shortly before heading into this movie, like, will my legendary stoicism be a match for the works of Czech's notes, Chloe Jiao, Paul Meskell, Jesse Buckley, with music by Max Richter, who has made some of the most tear-jerking music I've experienced in my life. And the answer is, I guess I come down somewhere in between you two. I counted, I cried five times. Wow.

For a film with this subject matter, for a film, that is working this hard to make audiences feel and cry, I felt like for me that was relatively restrained. I really liked this film. The performances at its center, I think Paul Mescal is fine, but I think Jesse Buckley, as she basically always has been in everything I've seen her in, is just transcendent. I think she's a magnificent actor. She gets a lot to chew on here. I'm not necessarily a deep Shakespeare guy. I've read a couple of plays. I've seen a few adaptations. I've not seen Hamlet, 38 or 39 times. I still found myself moved by the parallels between the story and the work and was sort of fascinated by the way this film is in conversation with another award season

favorite sentimental value, which is another recent film about kind of using art as a means of escape. I found that really interesting. In general, I sat down expecting to cry and I cried. Yeah. That pause said worlds. No, no, no. Let me explain myself further. I think one of my biggest issues is that I often find, okay, this is totally a me thing. When it comes to films and projects that are set in this era of history, like, it is a much bigger hurdle for me to latch on to what is happening here.

And I think, yes, Chloe Zhao, she is very good at manipulating. And manipulating is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it director, that is what they do. Sometimes you see the strings more, and I think here you see the strings so much. And it also just felt like a very familiar story to me in a way that didn't transcend how kind of artsy-fartsy it felt for me. Oh, man. Yeah. Yes, it's about the loss of a child.

And that is a big part of it. And that is a big part of the climactic ending of this film. But it is also, like, at its heart of a story about, like, two people who, fall in love, but then like the husband goes away and now it's about the mother who has to like bear all of the tragedy and bear all. And I'm like, I've seen this before. Nicole Kahneman has done this type of movie 800,000 times. And it may not be quote unquote better than Hamnet when I see it, but I do find it more interesting. And Paul Meskull, for me, with the exception of something like all the strangers or after son, where yes, he's kind of the lead, but he takes the back. I think that

Usually when I see him, he's not the best part of that movie. And for me, he's a bigger role in this movie. He is kind of a co-lead with Jesse Buckley. And that time we spend with him, he just doesn't, he's just kind of sappy and soggy. Well, and now, in fairness, which he needs to be for the plot to work. I mean, this is about Jesse Buckley's character, not recognizing that her husband is also grieving. And she is grieving. and her grief is so all-consuming

that she actually thinks that he's off writing a comedy in London, that he's simply gotten past this. And she doesn't realize that he is working through all of these things himself because he isn't good at expressing himself, which is a really interesting concept for Shakespeare, of course. You need him to not be forthright,

to not be out there, unless he's on stage, which he is at one point, or playing with the kids or something like that, you need him to sort of to step back a little bit. And Jesse Buckley, her character, is so consumed by what she's feeling that have two people on screen who are doing that with driving nuts. It would be just too much. I think it's by design. The thing that is bothering you about it is by design.

Yeah, and I also don't know that Paul Meskell is he's billed kind of as a co-lead with Jesse Buckley in part because of name recognition. but it is a bigger part for her than it is for him. He disappears for, again, by design, for long stretches of this story because he's gone off to London to do whatever it is that William Shakespeare does. And the film, I think, centers her in ways that I kind of appreciated in having watched so many historical epics focused on great men. I found myself kind of appreciating the fact that this is about another facet of their lives that is not necessarily overloaded with scenes of him putting quill to paper and writing a masterpiece.

It doesn't seem as interested in the process of writing a masterpiece as so many historical epics about art tend to be. I do appreciate that aspect of it. Yes, it's about the art, but it's how you do with that outside of the art as well. I guess where I just keep coming back to is, you know, I rewatched Zhao's feature debut songs. my brothers taught me. And it's a fictional story using sort of mostly amateur actors set on the Pine Ridge Reservation and it centers on indigenous characters in a modern day setting. And it has a lot of similar similarities. I mean, all of her films, except maybe Eternals, which I haven't seen. I have no idea what happens in that movie, but whatever. But like all of her films sort of have that sense of loss

and grief and how you deal with that. And I think it's done to varying effect. And for me, I just think that a movie like songs my brothers taught me is just way better at feeling you feel the sort of manipulations happening, but there's just something more naturalistic about it. And maybe it is because in the case of Will here in this film, he is theatrical. I just kept seeing the scenes and feeling it and just being like, this is not working for me. I'm not connecting with this. I feel bad that this is happening to them. but I felt as though everything just was washing over me. And this is where it just gets hard to critique something

where I just really didn't like it. And it really moved other people, but I just couldn't connect with it. After seeing it, I wanted to make sure, as I say, my initial reaction was colored by the fact that a friend, Susan Stamberg, had just died. And I wanted to make sure that when I saw it a second time, it was still effective.

And I thought it was, although my husband didn't think it was as effective as I did, he thought it was a good movie, but he wasn't sort of blown away by it. I confess, I just was awash, and I don't do that very often. I'm not Stephen. I have all these devices to separate myself from the event, and there was something about this. And I, look, I'm looking at this, and here's Shakespeare, and he's sitting there. At one point, there's a scene where he's white light from yonder window breaks,

and he's making sure that the meter is right for iambic pentameter. And I thought, well, that's a nice touch. I actually talked to a critic who went to this film and didn't realize until somebody said the name William Shakespeare that this was about him, right? Had somehow just missed. I could see that. There's a crawl at the beginning. Well, it says that Hamlet and Hamlet are the same name, sort of like Jonathan and John are today. Sure.

They pronounce Agnes as Agnes. So Annius and Anne are also very close. They're making it clear that certain things worked differently when pronunciation was not set in stone the way that we do today. I found that theatrical touches to it kind of fascinating on their own. And then there's this coup de theater at the end that is, you know, where they sort of drag you into feeling in the way that you feel in a theater. And that's, as a theater nut, I love that. I mean, it's a thing that film often doesn't do for me. And so I was moved.

What can I say? It's funny because I, the history of sound, another film starring Paul Meskell, which came out this year, 2025, that is just as sort of manipulative and many times kind of overly sentimental in ways that you would think I would find, like, be resistant to. But that one I just was drawn to more, I think in part just because there were elements about it. This is, you know, it's set in the early 20th century, and Paul Mescal has a, like, sort of romantic relationship with Josh O'Connor, but then it's also about, like, documenting sound in that era, and it's just fascinating to me.

And it ends in a very cliche way. And yet I was drawn to it in a way that I just couldn't get drawn to this here. I love that response, because that is exactly what I'm doing to Hamlet. Yeah. I am drawn to it for the surrounding stuff, not necessarily for the. the plot that's being told to me. And it's interesting, I didn't get clobbered by history of sound in the same way, but I get what you're saying, absolutely.

It has a lovely sort of theatrical moment at the very end, which is really something. I just appreciate any movie that's set, say, around 1600 or whatever, that really shows you how grubby and miserable life must have been. Yeah, it does do a pretty good job of that. Yeah. I did find myself constantly admiring the craft that went into this. The construction of the houses, the kind of irregular shapes of the housing. It feels, I'm sure there are anachronisms somewhere.

I'm sitting here like, when was this invented? When was this invented? I would occasionally get distracted by that. But I do think it does a beautiful job of situating you in that era and making you not want to live there. Yes. This is these movies again make me like realize I'm so low. lucky to have been born in these times, for many reasons, but especially because, oh, man, it does look miserable.

You just see them wishing for medicine. Yes. Vaccines. All of the things. All right. Well, we want to know what you think about Hamnet. Find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash PCHH. And on letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR pop culture.

We'll have a link in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show, Bob Mandello, Aisha Han. Harris. Thanks so much for being here and disagreeing so profusely. Thank you for having me. Thanks for helping me work through my resentment of this movie. This episode was produced by Liz Metzker, Carly Rubin, and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In, provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.