HAVING A BAWL

Audiences are flocking to watch the Golden Globe-winning film 'Hamnet' because they need a really good cry, writes Charlotte Cripps, who asks experts about the phenomenon

- Charlotte Cripps

Fancy a good cry – and to feel emotionally detoxed? Want a release of oxytocin? To feel lighter? Clearer? Need to breathe again? Just go and see Hamnet, the new screen adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, starring Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley in her Golden Globe-winning role as his wife, Agnes - and prepare for a mass sob-fest with some popcorn.

Chloé Zhao’s award-winning film Hamnet, adapted from the novel of the same name, which imagines the story surrounding the death of Shakespeare’s only son, has become notorious not just for its outstanding performances, but for the tsunami of sobbing it is triggering in cinemas across the globe.

“Take tissues and prepare to have your heart ripped out,” is a typical comment among the thousands posted since the film came out at the weekend. “It’s worthy of a whole box of Kleenex,” one friend wrote. Another said: “It destroyed me. I had to sit in silence until the last person left the cinema to recover.”

So what is going on? With Hamnet tipped for a full sweep at the Oscars, is this a release in every sense of the word? It certainly feels as though people are queuing to see it not just for Buckley’s astonishing performance, but because they are actively anticipating a monumental outpouring of emotion too.

The promise of being reduced to a blubbering mess, tears streaming down your face, has become part of the box-office thrill. Hamnet is increasingly being used as a vehicle through which people can connect with feelings that might otherwise take years to access in talking therapy. In a world full of anxiety over what we cannot control, and grief for what we feel we are losing, are we now using the film as a collective bonding exercise in catharsis? Has Hamnet become an epic communal therapy session?