MOVIE NEWS – For Maggie O’Farrell, writing about the death of a young boy from a mother’s perspective was so difficult that, out of superstitious fear, she put off starting the novel for a long time.
One of last year’s biggest film surprises was the widely anticipated, still-unreleased Hamnet: its festival run has shown that two-time Oscar winner Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) has once again created something enduring. The powerful drama has so far received 37 awards and 187 nominations from festivals and various critics’ organizations, with the most significant among them being the Golden Globe nominations. Hamnet earned six Golden Globe nominations in the following categories: Best Motion Picture – Drama, Actress in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Director, Screenplay, and Original Score. Based on current projections, it is likely to be nominated for an Oscar in these categories soon as well.
The film is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same title, published in 2020, which boldly retold William Shakespeare’s family story from a new perspective. At the center of the book is the playwright’s only son, Hamnet, who died in 1596 at the age of 11. The novel was a major success: O’Farrell won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction for it. In the film adaptation, Jessie Buckley (Agnes) and Paul Mescal (Shakespeare) bring the leads to life. The screenplay is credited to the author, co-written with director Chloé Zhao.
In a recent interview with People magazine, O’Farrell said that her own experiences of motherhood strongly shaped the creation of the novel. She has three children and believes that, if she were not a mother, Hamnet would have been a very different book. Writing about the death of a young boy from a mother’s perspective was especially hard for her, to the point that she delayed writing for a long time out of superstitious fear, until her own son was older than Hamnet had been. She only began writing once her son had turned 13.
(Hamnet – Hungarian release: January 22, 2026.)
Source: UIP Dunafilm
