Shakespeare family tragedy 'Hamnet' wins top Toronto film prize

Toronto: “Hamnet,” a devastating period drama about the life of William Shakespeare and his family, won top prize Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The heart-wrenching movie stars Paul Mescal as Shakespeare, who tries to forge a career as a playwright while his wife Agnes — played by Jessie Buckley — contends with the perils of plague and childbirth in Elizabethan England.

It comes from Chloe Zhao, who directed 2020’s Oscar-winning “Nomadland.” Securing the Toronto award, on top of glowing reviews, confirms “Hamnet” as another Academy Award frontrunner.

The film is based on a novel by Maggie O’Farrell, which colors in the gaps of the little we know about the Shakespeares.

“Maggie’s novel, it was like a poem,” Zhao told AFP.

Novel and film speculate that Agnes encouraged William to move to London solo and pursue his dreams in the theater, confident that their love was strong enough to endure the separation.

“To see them fall in love and come together, be torn apart… it’s an inner civil war that we all battle with as we grow and mature,” said Zhao.

The couple had a son called Hamnet — a name that scholars say would have sounded indistinguishable from “Hamlet” at the time the play was written.

Unlike festival prizes bestowed by Cannes and Venice, the Toronto People’s Choice Award is selected by public audiences. Any movie in the festival’s entire official lineup is eligible, unlike the curated “in competition” shortlists used elsewhere.

It has successfully anticipated several recent Oscar best picture winners, including “Green Book” and Zhao’s “Nomadland,” although its predictive power has waned in the past few years.

Second prize at Toronto went to Guillermo del Toro’s lavish new “Frankenstein” adaptation, while third place went to “Wake Up Dead Man,” the latest installment of Daniel Craig’s whodunit “Knives Out” franchise.

The award for top documentary was presented to a divisive film about an Israeli ex-soldier’s efforts to rescue his family from the October 7 Hamas attacks.

“The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue” — which was initially being cut from the festival lineup for ostensibly technical reasons, before being reinstalled under protest — premiered at Toronto under heavy police presence.

Groups supporting Israel and the Palestinians faced off outside the venue before the screening of the film, which charts how retired Israeli general Noam Tibon saved his family and others during the 2023 Hamas attack.

Toronto’s new International People’s Choice Award went to “No Other Choice,” a thriller from Park Chan-wook, the veteran South Korean director of classics including “Old Boy.”