Some of my friends have misgivings about Chloe Zhao's films. I do not, as I'd only ever seen part of Eternals before watching this. The harshest criticisms of her other films had to do with their subject matter. People objected to Eternals 's role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; or, they objected to Nomadland because they found it patronizing about poverty. Hamnet is a film with seemingly neutral subject matter, so I wondered what could possibly go wrong. There is a scene in this film where William Shakespeare, distraught over the death of his son, runs off in the middle of the night and stands at a riverbank. We understand he's thinking about jumping in and ending his life. Then he recites to himself: "To be or not to be..." This was about as silly as the bit in Interstellar when Matt Damon's character says "you have literally raised me from the dead," and McConaughey's character helpfully informs him that their mission is cal...
"We are in the world, not against it." - Ursula K. Le Guin