The Oscar contender that turns us inside out

Warning: Mild plot spoilers

Three character‑driven films are leading this year’s Oscar race: the vampire-horror Sinners, the thriller-comedy One Battle After Another, and the historical-fiction Hamnet. Each centres on a family haunted by its past, and each features powerful performances that reveal the cost of healing generational shame and trauma. The drama of each is found in ‘the turn’: will they turn their back on one way of life in order to turn towards someone? 

Since today is World Book Day, and Oscars Night falls on Mother’s Day – and because I didn’t fancy watching the other two – I’m focusing on the twists and turns of Hamnet. 

Watching Maggie O’Farrell’s story unfold in a packed cinema makes for a powerful shared experience – sometimes uncomfortably so. It presses us close, inviting us to sit together in what hurts.  

Turned inward  

Although Hamnet features William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), its beating heart is his wife, Agnes, played with extraordinary depth by Jessie Buckley (favourite to win the Academy Award for Best Actress).  

We first see Agnes from above, wearing red and curled up in the foetal position, within the exposed roots of an ancient tree – a striking image of someone trying to protect a heart that has been wounded. Agnes is deeply attuned to nature, especially to her hawk, yet she is guarded with both people and with God. Her mother (a herbalist dismissed by some as a forest witch) taught Agnes to live with an open heart, but loss makes this dangerous. 

Across the film, we watch Agnes unfurl: sometimes gently, sometimes gut-wrenchingly. The pacing is slow and attentive, like the walk of an alongsider – steady and present, even when it feels like everything else is falling apart. 

Her whispered plea to her husband, ‘Look at me. Look at me!’, becomes a recurring call to openness. When he refuses to show her his manuscript-in-progress, she asks, ‘What are you afraid I will see?’ A question that disarms because it is rooted in love. 

Turned around  

The second heart of this story – one that pounds sickeningly fast before falling silent – is their son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe). His death becomes a tragedy his parents process alone, as his father leaves for London, ‘where the world gathers’, instead of gathering his own family close. 

In an interview, Jessie Buckley described the challenge of portraying grief: ‘I was just completely lost… And then I realised that being lost was the most honest thing… It was too much and there’s so much in that lostness – vulnerability, rage, seeking…’ (Jessie Buckley on Becoming Agnes for ‘Hamnet’, RottenTomatoes) 

Buckley’s portrayal is visceral. Agnes still has a family to care for, but the illusion that she can foresee and protect her children’s futures has been shattered. What remains is an aching loneliness and a stark choice: keep your lost heart open or never let your guard down. 

Another woman who felt utterly lost and abandoned – who feared for her son’s life – was Hagar. She ran away, into the desert, but God met her there. She named him, ‘the God who sees me’ (Genesis 16:13 NIVUK). 

Turning towards together 

A friend I watched the film with is a trained counsellor. She told me that when we process trauma in isolation, our emotions can become stuck; but when someone witnesses our story, something shifts and releases. 

Buckley echoed this when reflecting on filming at The Globe: ‘I realised that there’s something bigger that just your pain and that’s being in community, and there I was in the middle of the Globe with 300 extras, who probably had come with their own unspoken grief and pain and love and seeking.’  

There is something healing about sharing the load of what is too heavy to hold alone. There is catharsis in expressing emotion through art. There is quiet power in experiencing a story collectively – tissues being passed down the cinema row between strangers. 

So many of the Psalms give voice to lament, helping us turn to God together in our grief, showing us we can trust him with our darkest depths. When Lazarus dies, Mary weeps, the community weeps, and Jesus himself weeps with them (John 11:33-35).  

Face to face with Love himself 

But also, when we turn to God, tragedy does not get the final word … Jesus raises Lazarus. Jesus turns towards Calvary, so that we can turn our backs on death and turn to face Love himself forever. 

As Alongsiders, we image ‘the God who sees’ when we turn towards each other, listen well and bear witness to each other’s pain, however uncomfortable. As ‘oaks of righteousness’, we too are exposed to the elements – just like Hagar, Mary and Jesus. Yet Jesus roots us firmly in God’s eternal promises – promises like Revelation 21:4: 

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.’ (NIV) 

And promises like Psalm 34: 

‘I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant…
The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
and his ears toward their cry…
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.’ (v 4-5, 15, 18 ESV) 

God’s promises release us to unfurl our hearts, to draw alongside others, and to turn towards God together. We can gently encourage each other, even when feeling completely lost, to seek the God who sees and saves us.  

Allow me to adapt a couple of lines from the film, which beautifully capture something of the open heart of an alongsider:  

‘Did you see Him? He’s tucked all His promises inside our broken hearts. Will you be brave and turn your heart to the Son?’