Oscar Best Picture nominee 'Hamnet' finds bittersweet resolution after tragedy

A young child named Hamnet was primed to join his father, William Shakespeare, in London, where he could fulfill his dream of becoming a stage actor once he got older.

- By JANUAR JUNIOR AGUJA

However, the bubonic plague took his life at the young age of 11. After his unfortunate passing, Shakespeare would stage one of his greatest tragedies a few years later, almost named after his late son, “Hamlet.”

The theory that Shakespeare wrote the play for his late son is suggested in Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 titular novel. The Irish author was frustrated that Hamnet was treated as a footnote in historical accounts of the famed English playwright. As a result, she attempted to give Hamnet a presence in her fictional retelling of Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway.

O'Farrell also wrote the novel as a manifestation of her own fears of losing her child, who had meningitis and encephalitis.

It is perhaps why it felt fitting that the novel was released during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, mirroring the fear many parents experienced while raising children in a world gripped by a new, highly contagious virus without a vaccine at the time.

Half a decade later, O’Farrell brought her emotional story to the big screen with Chloé Zhao, who directed the big screen adaptation of “Hamnet” — nominated in eight categories at this year’s Oscars, including Best Picture.