Hamnet: The ONE Quirk That Changes EVERYTHING

Okay, so you’ve read Maggie O’Farrell’s incredible novel Hamnet, right? Or maybe you’ve just seen the buzz around Chloé Zhao’s film adaptation. It’s a gorgeous, heart-wrenching story about Anne Hathaway-Shakespeare-hush, Agnes Hathaway-Shakespeare-that’s the one-and her family. It’s about grief, genius, and the silent strength of women in a world that mostly ignored them. And for the most part, Zhao’s movie is super faithful to the book, which makes sense, O’Farrell herself is a credited co-writer on the screenplay, which is always a good sign, generally speaking, for adaptations.

But here’s the thing-the really interesting thing, actually. The movie does one tiny, almost imperceptible-at first-detail that the book absolutely doesn’t do. A stylistic choice, you might call it. And honestly? It flips the entire narrative, or at least the way you perceive it, on its head. It’s not a huge plot point change, not a character merger, nothing like that. It’s much subtler. But it’s also, I think, quite profound. It’s the kind of thing that makes you go, “Wait a minute…” after it sinks in. And it completely changes how we view Agnes, and even William.

The Bard’s Own Words, or Someone Else’s?

So, what am I talking about? Well, throughout Zhao’s film, there are moments, quiet ones, often during poignant scenes, when Shakespeare’s actual lines-from his plays-are recited. Now, you might think, “Well, yeah, it’s a story ABOUT Shakespeare, his wife, his children. Why wouldn’t they include his words?” And that’s a perfectly logical thought. A natural assumption, even. But here’s the kicker:

Why the Book Skipped the Sonnets

O’Farrell’s novel, famously, makes a deliberate choice to never quote Shakespeare directly. Not one line. Not one sonnet. It’s a powerful narrative decision. The book is all about Agnes, about her lived experience, her perspective, her almost mystical connection to nature and a deep understanding of the human heart, far beyond what her husband’s brilliance would later capture on paper. The absence of his famous words felt like a way to keep the focus squarely on her, on the domestic, on the personal tragedy that fueled his later art, without letting his eventual fame overshadow the raw human drama unfolding.

• Point: The novel’s strength lies in placing Agnes’s voice-and silent suffering-at the forefront.
• Insight: By omitting direct quotes, O’Farrell emphasizes the pre-fame, pre-legend Shakespeare, grounding him in his family rather than his literary output.

It was a brilliant move, really. It allowed us to see William as a young man, a husband, a father, before he became “Shakespeare.” Before the towering cultural figure. And it made Agnes, this fierce, independent, almost wild woman, the undisputed heart of the story. You experience the tragedy of Hamnet’s death through her eyes, through William’s, but not through the lens of a playwright’s later immortal words. It kept it raw and intimate. Unvarnished by literary greatness, you know?

The Subtlety of the Spoken Word Changes Everything

Now, here’s where it gets interesting with the film. Zhao’s adaptation, though mostly reverent, intersperses actual Shakespearean lines throughout the dialogue, or as voiceovers, sometimes spoken by the actors playing the characters, sometimes almost like an internal monologue. It’s a small thing, honestly, but it carries a surprisingly heavy weight. Think about it: suddenly, these characters are uttering the very lines that will one day become synonymous with dramatic genius.

Whose Voice Is It, Anyway?

This isn’t just a stylistic flourish-it fundamentally alters our perception. When you hear a character say something like, “If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come-the readiness is all,” (from Hamlet, for the record), it immediately connects back to the William Shakespeare we know, the literary giant. It shifts the focus, even subtly, from the raw, human experience of the family to the genesis of his work. It implies that these words, these profound observations, were already simmering, already part of the fabric of their lives, even before he penned them.

• Point: The film’s inclusion of Shakespeare’s lines almost retroactively validates William’s genius within the narrative.
• Insight: It makes the film more about how his life informed his art, whereas the book was more about the life itself, unburdened by the art’s eventual form.

“This seemingly minor alteration shifts the narrative weight, however marginally, from the raw, unadorned experience of individuals to the almost predestined emergence of a literary titan. It frames their life story not just as a tragedy, but as the inevitable crucible of creation.”

It’s not that one approach is inherently “better” than the other, mind you. But they certainly achieve different effects. The book maintains Agnes’s fierce autonomy as the spiritual and emotional core, almost as if saying, “His genius came from these very human roots, not the other way around.” The film’s approach, by letting those iconic lines bleed into the narrative, suggests a kind of preordained destiny, a bubbling wellspring of his future work always present. It’s a little less about Agnes as the sole lens, and a little more about Agnes as the muse, perhaps, or at least a significant part of the inspiration for the genius that was always there, waiting.

The Unspoken Impact on Resonance

This tiny difference-the presence or absence of a few lines of Elizabethan verse-actually has a massive impact on the overall feel. The novel is about Agnes’s heartbreak almost exclusively, a private grief that just so happens to fuel one of the greatest plays ever written. The movie, by using those quotes, almost makes the heartbreak and William’s eventual fame feel more entwined, more cyclical. It creates a sort of meta-narrative, where the very words born of their tragedy are woven back into the telling of that tragedy.

A Different Kind of Catharsis

It gives the movie a different kind of catharsis, I think. When you hear those lines, you’re not just thinking about the characters in the moment, you’re thinking about the plays themselves, about the centuries of scholarship and performance, about the sheer human truth embedded in them. It’s like the film is constantly winking at you, reminding you of the ultimate outcome of all this hardship. The book, on the other hand, makes you sit with the suffering, the mundane struggle, the profound loss, without that external literary framework.

• Point: The film’s use of quotes provides a subtle foreshadowing of legacy, whereas the book keeps it firmly in the present.
• Insight: This choice guides the audience’s emotional journey-either towards the profound human story or towards the story of how that human experience birthed literary greatness.

Ultimately, both are beautiful works, captivating in their own right. But it’s fascinating to see how such a seemingly minor adaptation choice-a few words here and there-can fundamentally shift the emphasis, the emotional resonance, and even the ultimate message of a story. It highlights, I think, the sheer power of editorial decisions, even the subtle ones. It raises a question, really: which version speaks more to you? The one that keeps the genius at arm’s length, or the one that shows it, however nascent, always present?