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To watch “Hamnet” or not to watch “Hamnet,” that is the question. Luckily, the answer is simple: a clear and resounding yes.

“Hamnet,” which debuted in select theaters Nov. 26, has been advertised as one of the best films of the year — a lofty bar. Somehow, though, the film manages to clear it with ease. Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s book “Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague,” the film is a poignant, searing watch that will make you rethink everything you think you know about the play “Hamlet” and its creator.

“Hamnet” reveals the fictional untold story behind Shakespeare’s famous tragedy: the Bard’s romance with the mysterious and captivating Agnes (Jessie Buckley), the vibrant life they build together, and the devastating loss that unravels it all. Written by O’Farrell and directed by Chloé Zhao, the film follows Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) as he navigates love, grief, and the turbulent waters of turning pain into performance. It takes its title from Shakespeare’s son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), a name interchangeable with Hamlet during the 16th century. The link between these two — the son stolen from Shakespeare by the plague and the play that is arguably the Bard’s most famous — lies at the heart of the film.

Casting director Nina Gold deserves at least 154 sonnets for the impeccable cast involved in this project. Mescal and Buckley deliver some of their most notable performances yet — high praise, given the lauded careers of the “Normal People” and “The Lost Daughter” stars. In a film fraught with quiet tensions, complex relationships, and emotionally demanding moments, they dexterously capture the poignant dynamics of a couple forced to endure pain no parents ever should. The pair perform intense emotion just as expertly as they capture subtlety: The visceral scream Buckley emits when her son takes his last breath is nothing short of gut-wrenching, and Mescal’s heartfelt monologue during Shakespeare’s show’s debut is guaranteed to summon tears.

An unexpected standout performance comes from Jupe, who infuses the role of Hamnet with childish innocence and purity. At just 12 years old, Jupe navigates the emotional intricacies of the film with a confidence that is all the more impressive given his age. Puckish and sweet, Jupe’s Hamnet is impossible not to love — making his death all the more impactful when it comes. Those with a particularly shrewd eye may notice an uncanny resemblance between Jupe and the actor who portrays Hamlet, Hamnet’s mirror, in Shakespeare’s play. Gold’s casting brilliance truly shines here: Hamlet is played by Noah Jupe, Jacobi’s older brother, making the parallels between Hamnet and Hamlet all the more undeniable.

For Shakespeare devotees, the film is full of allusions and Easter eggs that will prove fruitful, thought-provoking, and evasive enough to provoke dissection and debate. Attentive viewers will spot Shakespeare penning “Romeo and Juliet” as he courts Agnes, contemplating “to be or not to be” after his son’s death, and rehearsing a haphazard, playful version of the witches’ chant from “Macbeth” with his children.

But the film takes its engagement with Shakespeare’s work a step further by making use of many of the artistic techniques that the Bard himself utilized. For instance, like many of Shakespeare’s plays, “Hamnet” incorporates traditional Greek mythology, weaving in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice as a framing device that reinforces the film’s themes of dual love and loss.

“Turn around,” Agnes murmurs again and again throughout the film, invoking the myth that Shakespeare tells her the first time they meet. By “turning around” at the mouth of the underworld, Orpheus simultaneously proves his devotion and seals the fate of Eurydice. The message is clear: to care for someone means letting them go. There is no love without loss. As painful as death may be, grief is the lingering evidence of love. The film encourages the audience, too, to “turn around” — to look back on this lost slice of history and to bear witness to the Shakespeare family’s unraveling and rebuilding.

In many ways, “Hamnet” encourages the same kind of “close reading” and symbolic analysis that literary critics often apply to Shakespeare’s works. From the colors of character’s attire — which change infrequently, much like costuming in a play — to the recurring representation of forests as sites of liminality, ancestral connection, and escape from social strictures, the film rewards careful attention and symbolic interpretation.

That being said, the staggering cinematography in “Hamnet” will enchant viewers who are content to take the film at surface value, too. The film is lush with beauty — the forest scenes alone, bursting with vivid greenery, are enough to take one’s breath away. Likewise, the visually arresting final scenes, set in the 16th century Globe Theatre, will haunt viewers long after they leave Shakespeare’s era and re-enter their own.

Fair warning, however: come prepared with tissues. “Hamnet” is a film that confronts some of the most harrowing human experiences with unflinching honesty, and the outstanding performances make it piercing and utterly believable.

It’s not just the film’s emotional subject matter or its stars’ delivery, however, that makes “Hamnet” so moving. A significant part of the film’s resonance emerges from its “play within a play” structure, a token device of Shakespeare’s. The creative conceit of the film — which carries viewers through the events that inspired “Hamlet” and then incorporates scenes from the play itself — convey a powerful message about the power of performance. Storytelling becomes a conduit for reviving the dead, as Shakespeare uses theater to regain the goodbye he was robbed of in real life. By transforming his personal grief into an act of collective mourning, Shakespeare turns “Hamlet” into an enduring testament to his love for his son — an elegy so resonant audiences are still bearing witness to it today, in the form of the film itself.

In the stillness that hangs in the air at the film’s conclusion, audiences may be seized by the instinct to clap. The urge is natural — it reflects the many ways “Hamnet” expertly blurs the line between film and theater. It intertwines memory and mourning, art and acting, sacrifice and song in a beautiful tapestry of storytelling that defies genre expectations. Where the historical record is quiet, “Hamnet” speaks. The rest, as Shakespeare once wrote, is silence.

—Staff writer Makenna J. Walko can be reached at makenna.walko@thecrimson.com.