I have never stood up in my living room and applauded a film before. But I did just that when I watched Hamnet. I didn’t capture this reaction on video and put it on TikTok, but I’m telling you it happened. I stood up and said, “Bravo, Chloé Zhao! BRAVO! Bravo, Jessie Buckley! Bravo, Paul Mescal!” I have never done that before. I probably will never do it again. I don’t know exactly why I was moved beyond words to the point where I would scare my dog by suddenly applauding while alone in a room (except for my dogs). Such is the power of catharsis, the power of art.
The Oscar game has always been a destroyer of all good things. It isn’t the Oscars themselves, it’s the game, the tribalism, the stupid fights over which is best. But every so often, I come out of the toxic bubble of Film Twitter and observe normal humans out in the world buying tickets to the movies and experiencing deep emotion, as they are now with Hamnet.
I don’t know the movie’s ultimate fate, but I can tell you that after 26 years of this, it doesn’t matter if it wins or not. A consensus vote in a given year tells you only about the game – how good the publicity was, how influential the critics were, how effective the bloggers were in pushing the movies into the race. And it takes the temperature of a moment in time. A movie’s worth is not decided by that consensus vote or by any of us in the here and now. Great movies only become great over time, as we look back on them. They grow as we grow. The good ones will last. The momentary flings will fall away.
I’m betting no one who saw Hamnet in a movie theater will ever forget it. On TikTok, there is a viral trend of users recording themselves before and after seeing Hamnet. Here is a video compilation I thought you might enjoy.
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