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A Familiar Tune: Hamnet and ‘On The Nature Of Daylight’
*This article contains major spoilers for Hamnet*
When you’ve done a good job, there’s no need to overdo it. This is a lesson that Hamnet would have done well to learn. Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel has rightly been tagged as this awards season’s weepie of choice, but it has over-egged the recipe. A film about the death of William Shakespeare’s young son is bound to invite an emotional response, but it goes to extreme lengths to ensure that response. Hamnet is a three-hanky weepie, but when the sound of a familiar leitmotif begins creeping in at a critical juncture, it threatens to undermine every attempt up to that point to get the audience blubbing.
