Taste of Cyn

Hamnet And Grief

By Cynthia Sax on June 5, 2026

Spoiler Alert – This post will talk about Hamnet and it WILL contain spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched this heart-wrenching movie based on the book by Maggie O’Farrell about the life of the WIFE of William Shakespeare, you might wish to skip this post.

I recently watched Hamnet and wowsers, I think this is the best movie dealing with grief I’ve ever watched. It is definitely a three hanky watch.

One of the things that makes it so good, so touching is…much of the movie is happy. We see and feel the happiness, the love, the building of hope.

The main character, Anne, Shakespeare’s wife, has a realistic, some might say rather cynical view on life. She doesn’t expect much from life or from other people.

This changes throughout the movie. She begins to hope. She forms connections with other people, with the community. She laughs. She smiles. Joy surrounds her.

Then she experiences a great tragedy and that hard-found hope is yanked away from her.

She is sad, of course. We often talk about the sadness with loss.

But she is also angry, really, really angry. And that is a part of grief also.

As is the feeling of isolation, the feeling we are grieving alone, that the rest of the world has moved on and forgotten yet we haven’t and we don’t ever want to.

The answer to this isolation in the movie is brilliant. That answer and Anne’s reaction to it made me cry even harder than the initial tragedy.

This is a great movie to watch right before writing the dark moment, the big make-the-reader cry moment in your romance novel.

But have some tissues on hand when you do this!

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