Katie Walsh Tribune News Service (TNS)

Enveloped in soft green, the forest holds Agnes (Jessie Buckley) with the comfort and safety of a womb. Curled up in a centuries-old tree root, she is cradled by the lineage of her mother and the mothers before her, who walked out of the forest knowing of plants and dirt and animals. When she strides out of the woods in her red dress, a powerful hawk on her arm, a young tutor peering out of an attic classroom window is struck dumb at the sight of her. A man of words and letters, William (Paul Mescal) doesn’t quite know what to say.

This William, you’ve heard his words before. He is William Shakespeare, and in Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet,” which she adapted from the award-winning 2020 novel with author Maggie O’Farrell, she posits an idea: what if William S

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