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Perhaps no other author and thespian in world history has been as prolific and impactful as William Shakespeare, and Chloe Zhao's new film "Hamnet" portrays him and his wife Agnes (commonly referred to as Anne Hathaway) in a stage of grief after their young son dies. The film tries to make a connection between this family tragedy and how Shakespeare wrote and initially staged "Hamlet." It's an aesthetically strong and well-acted film in many ways, although it won't necessarily be uniformly engaging or impactful to everyone.

The tragic event that the story is centered on doesn't occur until a little over halfway through the film. Instead, Zhao spends the earlier part of the film focusing on Shakespeare and Agnes' earlier days together, including their marriage and beginning to have children. While these scenes are well-acted and well-shot, they often move much slower than the second half of the story, almost too slow to have the desired effect on the audience. And even though they provide a "slice of life" to the viewer, they're not quite as insightful and engaging enough to significantly drive the plot forward as much as they should.

Zhao does, however, get compelling performances out of the cast that match the emotional intensity and sadness embedded in the narrative. Jesse Buckley does an excellent job as Agnes, providing a comprehensive emotional range from deeply depressive and emotive sadness to more understated acting. Her performance is character-driven and always emotionally charged, and does an excellent job complementing the viewer's perception of how she experienced grief and how she commonly felt in her marriage to Shakespeare even in more mundane life moments. Also compelling, albeit with far less to do in terms of an acting range, is Paul Mescal as Shakespeare. Mescal is a good actor, but in terms of the substance of his performance here, he's mostly limited to comforting his wife and entertaining his children for significant portions of the movie's runtime. Noah Jupe stands out as Hamnet as well, giving a great performance for a child actor.

The production design is very strong, with excellent aesthetic attention to detail based on the historical time period the story is set. The cinematography and score are understated but poignant and elegant, which reflects the tone of the film. That tone is consistent, but it sometimes is a bit too sentimental. It would have been better to slightly reduce the feeling of over-sentimentality in a few scenes, but other than that, Zhao's direction is generally well-suited to the style and content on display here. A scene near the end set in the Globe Theatre is engaging and helps sum up the themes of the movie, although it would have been better if the first half of the movie was similarly engaging and more directly correlated to the story and themes on display. Recommended. 7/10.

Paul Thomas Anderson's eagerly awaited new film is an interesting mix of comedy and drama while managing to be politically timely. It's a great movie that is certainly very well-made and well-acted in many ways, but it falls a little short at being one of his best films. Loosely adapted from Thomas Pynchon's novel "Vineland," the film starts off following a group of revolutionaries called the "French 75," but it eventually jumps to closer to the present day. I won't say anything more about the plot so as to not give anything away, but over the course of the 2 hour and 40 minute runtime, the film blends comedic and dramatic moments pretty effectively despite the serious (and very relevant) political themes at hand. PTA's cinematography is always excellent, whether it be an understated shot in a home, a car chase scene with the camera directly focused on the road at hand, or anything else for that matter. The film is also very well-edited, and Johnny Greenwood's score (as well as the use of some well-timed needle drops) is exceptional.

Much has been said about the acting in the film, but my opinion is that the performances are very good but not exceptional across the board. DiCaprio is often funny in a screwball way, Chase Infiniti and Regina Hall both do a good job, Benicio Del Toro is quirky and amusing, and Sean Penn plays a cartoonishly villainous military officer effectively. However, most of the characters are fairly one-note in terms of depth and emotional range, which is why they connected with me a little less than I would have hoped. Still, it's obviously a very talented cast working well with Paul Thomas Anderson, so I certainly have no real complaints about the quality acting in the movie. PTA's screenplay is generally very good. The two things that hold it back from being a complete masterpiece for me are the relative one-noteness of most of the characters, and while the film is generally well-paced, the second act could have been trimmed a bit. That said, this is a great movie that I definitely recommend to cinephiles. 8.5/10.