At about the midway point in Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), an unconventional and earthy naturalist and healer who’s the wife of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), lets out a piercing scream destined to strike the soul of everyone in movie theaters.

Agnes’ primal, all-encompassing reaction to the unfathomable loss of her son was not part of the script and came from an organic place in Oscar-winning Zhao’s profoundly moving adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s beloved novel about how a family tragedy inspired one of the greatest stage works ever, “Hamlet.”

“Hamnet” opens Nov. 26 in the Bay Area and expands to more theaters Dec. 5.

The film calls for Buckley to convey an overwhelming, crippling grief, and in order to go there, the 2022 best actress nominee (for Maggie Gyllenhaa

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