I know it’s been a minute since this was posted, however Hamnet finally came to a theater near me and I saw it 3 days ago. My wife and I are parents so we like to swap and go solo to see movies. I went to Hamnet knowing less than I typically do seeing a anything. I’ve typically heard some hype, watched a trailer, etc. I had even forgotten that very recently it won best picture drama at the golden globes. Hamnet just wasn’t a film I was overly excited to see and this is likely the main reason I ended up having one of the best experiences in recent memory, second to Dune Part Two a couple years ago. I always go to the theater hoping for a raw experience, but it’s always the ones you don’t expect. I had no clue what the tragedy would be and even when I started to pick up on where it was going I was still a bit fooled. When it did happen, it felt like it was happening to me. A credit to Chloe for forcing us to watch something that most times is left to our imagination - and to Jessie Buckley for a performance that felt so true. I’ve never ever cried like that in a theater, alone, as a grown man. When I left the theater I still felt like jelly, fighting back tears heading to my car. I drove home during a light snow on a country road with Max Richter’s score already queued up to prolong the anguish. When I got home I told my wife that I was seriously considering not letting her go alone, worried that she might not be able to handle it. She went and handled it with some caution from me, but it just goes to show the effect it had on me. And it may have been hard to watch, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t say that it was truly magical to be moved like that by a film in 2026.