This moving drama is set in the late 16th and early 17th century in Stratford, England. Agnes (Jesse Buckley in an Oscar-winning Best Actress performance) is an herbalist who along with her brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) has been adopted into a peasant family. Her real mother is purported to be a forest witch. This lineage does not discourage William (Paul Mescal), who falls in love with her. They marry and have three children, including twins Judith (Olivia Lynes) and Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe).
When William goes to London to work at a theater and begins writing plays, we realize that his character is none other than William Shakespeare. And his play Hamlet is about the grief he feels when Hamnet dies from the Bubonic plague.
The stages of grief include shock, denial, anger, and sadness. Agnes expresses all of them. Her anger focuses on William, who was not present when Hamnet died a very painful death. Both parents are incredibly sad and watching them we can’t help but empathize with their need for some resolution to their grief. The play provides it.
Early in the story, Agnes and her brother talk about the advice their mother gave them in times of difficulty. She told them to live with their hearts open, to shut it not in the dark but to turn it to the sun. In the last scenes of the film, Agnes goes to the first theater performance of Hamlet. In that 20 minute scene, we observe that very process. Gradually, as the play unfolds with William just off-stage and Agnes in the front row, we watch two hearts open to what has happened and to each other.