Method in the sadness
CHLOÉ ZHAO RETURNS TO THE OSCAR RACE WITH MOVING SHAKESPEARE DRAMA HAMNET
WORDS IANA MURRAY
Shakespeare in love: Paul Mescal as the Bard, with Jessie Buckley as Agnes;
Director Chloé Zhao on set.
BRACE YOURSELF FOR one of the awards season’s heaviest hitters. Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet is an experience you need to be prepared for — so much so that the filmmaker has been leading festival audiences through meditative breathing exercises before screenings. Based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, the latest film from the Nomadland and Eternals director follows William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) as their relationship fractures in the wake of an unbearable loss that inspires the playwright’s magnum opus. Cue the tears. Zhao speaks to Empire about her weepy epic.