'' HAMNET '' : FILM REVIEW SNIPPET

The new film '' Hamnet '' features two bright young actors, Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley, playing Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes [ née Anne ] Hathaway.

'' Hamnet '' arrives already widely lauded - it won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival and has been sending millennial cinephiles into critical paroxysms.

'' Not to be hyperbolic but this movie contains the actual meaning of life,'' wrote one such reviewer on Letterboxd.

The film, based on Maggie O' Farrell's best-selling novel, recasts Shakespeare's life in the most youthful and desirable terms possible, positioning itself as a generational gateway for a reanimated obsession with the Bard.

I was struck by how the film chose to portray William Shakespeare, the greatest poet in the English language, as a kind of Marlon Brando IN ELIZABETHAN DRAG.

Mr. Mescal grunts wordlessly, mopes sad-eyed and sighs with inexpressible longing. Other than a brief reference to writing comedies, this Shakespeare exists under a perpetual cloud.

Ms. Buckley, similarly, plays Agnes with an emphasis on her suffering. The results played to me like mumblecore Shakespeare, conceived for the TikTok generation.

Our love of Shakespeare plays have led to a centuries-long fascination with the writer. So why does each new fictional iteration get his life so wrong?

The World Students Society thanks Drew Lichtenberg.