From the Rector…
***Spoiler alert: Plot details of Hamnet including the ending are revealed in this post.
The film Hamnet tells a fictionalized story of William Shakespeare, his marriage to Anne Hathaway, and the death of their son, Hamnet—a loss said to have inspired the writing of Hamlet. The movie is beautifully filmed in the English countryside, using camera angles and language that awaken a sense of the wild—the feeling that life is never fully within our grasp. Yet this wildness is not something to fear. It is simply the world as it is: untamed, mysterious, and aching with meaning.
At one point in the film, Shakespeare’s youngest daughter, Judith, becomes infected with the plague. Her family fights desperately for her life, including her twin brother, Hamnet. He lies beside her in bed and whispers that he will trade his life for hers—that if they lie close together, death will not be able to tell them apart. He succeeds. Death takes him instead.
It is in young Hamnet’s death that the story turns, and we see that this is no mere biopic, nor simply an imagined origin story for a famous play. This is tragedy in the truest sense of the word—a tragedy that explores the pain and disorientation of parents who have lost a child, their grief both shared and solitary, and the quiet danger of drifting apart beneath its weight.
In the months that follow, Anne and William grow distant. Shakespeare spends more time in London, while Anne remains at home with her sorrow. Eventually, Anne hears that he has written a new tragedy to be performed at the Globe Theatre. She and her brother travel to London and find themselves in the audience on opening night. She assumes, of course, that the play will be about her son, and she is confused by the Danish court, the ghostly father, and the murderous uncle. Drawn closer by forces she cannot name, she moves toward the stage and rests her arms upon it.
Anne is captivated. By the final scene, as Hamlet lies dying, she is so overcome that she reaches out to the actor in his agony. He takes her hand and meets her gaze. The moment lasts an eternity, though it is no more than a breath. Others in the audience begin to reach forward as well, until the space between stage and seats dissolves—hands stretching out, Hamlet reaching back. Then he dies. His final words: “The rest is silence.”
There lies Hamlet, hands extended toward him. Anne looks around and sees her grief reflected in every face—tightened jaws, tears held just at the edge, hands still reaching, longing to undo what cannot be undone. And Anne realizes she is not alone in her grief.
We are all connected through our deep sorrows. We all know the pain of wounds that words cannot heal. We reach out to one another. The rest is silence.
Light and Life,
Candice+