A hero suffering through a relatable life problem (divorce, growing up, death, mid-life crisis, etc.) tries to solve it by avoidance instead of tackling it head-on. Like most heroes, they choose the wrong path and ultimately need to learn the hard way, for only the experience can offer a solution. The end point of these stories is acceptance of our humanity.

The 3 elements of a RITES OF PASSAGE story are:

1) A life problem: from puberty to midlife to death—these are the universal passages we all understand.
2) A wrong way to attack the mysterious problem, usually a diversion from confronting the pain.
3) A solution that involves acceptance of a hard truth the hero has been fighting, and the knowledge it’s the hero that must change, not the world around them.

Save the Cat! Beat Sheet Analysis for Hamnet

Opening Image

“Hamnet” and “Hamlet” were the same name and interchangeable in Stratford records, an onscreen super informs us, followed by a cross-fade into a shot of two trees, side by side, like twins.

As the camera pans down, it’s revealed that the two are actually one at the base and underneath is the rather jarring sight of a woman in a red dress, sound asleep. Agnes (Jessie Buckley) seems to be part of the forest herself, like a colorful mushroom blooming out of the ground, and the tone is set: ethereal, symbolic, and frequently unsettling.

Theme Stated

Smitten by Agnes, the young William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) aggressively follows her into the woods only to subsequently stammer and stutter, declaring that it’s difficult for him to talk to people. Agnes suggests he tell her a story instead, “something that moves you,” and Will, immediately transformed by the privilege of storytelling, launches into the tragic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.

While the fable itself obviously foreshadows the various themes of love, death, and grief that Hamnet will explore, the true underlying theme is the power of story and storytelling to make meaning of that love, death, and grief.

Set-Up

In his thesis world, a miserable William Shakespeare is forced to pay off his family’s debts by working as a Latin tutor for young boys, but he perks up when he spies the beautiful Agnes coming out of the forest with a hawk perched on her falconry glove. Their meet-cute turns spicy quickly with a stolen kiss, followed soon afterwards by a full-fledged romp in the hay, or in this case, a romp on a rough-hewn wooden table. Ouch.

The embodiment of things that need fixing, Agnes and Will are misfits, guilty of the sin of “living with their hearts open” as Agnes’ mother, Rowan (Louisa Harland), used to say. They both come from unhappy homes with parents that berate and mock them, Will’s mother Mary (Emily Watson) going so far as to warn him that Agnes is a freak of nature, the daughter of a forest witch.

Agnes reads palms and can predict coming storms, both physical and emotional, based on the activity of bees. Will is an artist, overflowing with words that spill onto scraps of paper while his abusive father, John (David Wilmot), screams at him for sucking at manual labor.

Catalyst

Agnes gets pregnant and leaves her home, showing up on the Shakespeares’ doorstep.

Debate

Mary is enraged, calling Agnes every variation of “slut” under the sun, but Agnes’ brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) understands his sister’s unusual nature and grants the couple permission to marry.

Will and Agnes are happy together as she gives birth to Susanna and quickly gets pregnant again, but Will cannot bear this plebeian life; he drinks too much, writes feverishly, and cries continually, ya know, your basic insufferable tortured artist whom we only realize has real talent in hindsight.

Luckily, Agnes has believed in Will from the beginning and faith in her man forces an Act 2.

Break into Two

Agnes begs Bartholomew to send Will to London for a theatrical career while she and the children remain in Stratford; they can join him once he’s established.

B Story

With Will’s physical absence, Agnes’ B Story relationship with her children takes on more emotional weight than she will be able to manage, particularly since she lost her own mother as a child. Her mama-bear heart will nearly be crushed over this journey, but will provide her redemption in the end.

Fun and Games

An antithesis world where the Heroes get pretty much what they want? Shocking! Obviously, the lives of a single mother with three kids and a traveling father who misses his family are not ideal, but Will and Agnes make it work.

They delight in their children Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) and twins Judith (Olivia Lynes) and Hamnet (an incredible Jacobi Jupe), and their brief times together are filled with laughter, joy, and the singular satisfaction of acting out the three witches from your dad’s play, Macbeth.

Eleven years pass, and as you may have guessed, Agnes and the children never join Will in London. The strain of this arrangement starts to manifest in small ways; Agnes anxiously watches over Judith whom she almost lost in childbirth, and Hamnet misses his father terribly, showing signs of being parentified as “the man of the house.”

Despite the niggling threat of these internal bad guys, for the most part, Agnes and Will’s unusual family plan is still working. Until it doesn’t.

Midpoint

Agnes, ever attuned to trouble in the atmosphere, notices the odd behavior of insects and animals, while Will watches a puppet show about the bubonic plague carrying children away. The stakes are raised exponentially and a grim time clock starts ticking.

Bad Guys Close In

Judith contracts the plague and Agnes fights for her daughter’s life, employing every herbal remedy she knows and spending sleepless nights trying to forcibly will her back to health. Hamnet, terrified of losing his beloved twin, sneaks into Judith’s bed and tells her he will trick Death into taking him instead.

While Will tries desperately to get home to his daughter, Hamnet falls ill and begins to hallucinate, imagining himself on an empty stage, fearful of entering a dark passageway and tearfully calling out for his mother.

All Is Lost

Judith lives, but Hamnet dies, a crushing whiff of death.

Dark Night of the Soul

Agnes’ gut-wrenching bellow of despair upon the shock of Hamnet’s death should be enough to win Jessie Buckley the Oscar®, honestly. Her inability to save her son’s life with her herbal remedies and the sheer force of a mother’s love upends her world and Agnes turns her rage and devastation onto Will, who’s suffering in his own way—one night, he stands teetering at the edge of the River Thames, contemplating whether “to be or not to be.”

Break into Three

After a year of bitter silence between them, Agnes finds out from her stepmother that Will has a new play premiering in London: Hamlet.

Finale

In one of the most moving filmic depictions of a synthesis world ever, IMHO, Agnes gathers her team, her brother Bartholomew, and attempts to storm the castle, or in this case, the Globe Theatre. Angry, confused, and bitter over Will using Hamnet’s name, Agnes nearly succeeds in executing the plan of disrupting the performance, but in a tear-jerking high tower surprise, she’s captivated instead.

When Hamlet takes the stage—and can we just talk about the brilliance of having Noah Jupe, the real-life brother of the Hamnet actor, Jacobi Jupe, play the Dane?!—Agnes begins to undergo a transformation of seismic proportions. Over the course of the performance, she sees her husband and her life with new eyes, finally understanding why Will is driven to write and the catharsis that stories are able to produce.

As the Hamlet character is stabbed and slowly dies, Agnes spontaneously reaches out and takes the actor’s hand and when the rest of the audience follows her lead, fuhgeddaboudit, not a dry eye in the house, both the Globe Theatre house and the movie theater house (or your living room).

Final Image

Agnes’ sixth sense allows her to see an image of Hamnet on stage, paused at the opening of the dark tunnel he feared as he lay dying. They smile at each other and Hamnet turns into the passageway between two scenery trees, a Final Image that mirrors the Opening.

Agnes cries, then laughs, and we experience alongside her the power of good storytelling, “something that moves you.”

Check out the Beat Sheet Analyses for these other Oscar®-nominated films:

One Battle After Another

Train Dreams

Sentimental Value

Marty Supreme

Bugonia

Sinners

Weapons

KPop Demon Hunters

Frankenstein