Hello all! The first two days of TCFF have come and gone. It’s been a hectic Friday, and I barely had time to blog today. Unlike previous years, I don’t have the bandwidth this year to do a daily TCFF post, so my reviews will be timed closer to the film’s release date.

I do want to briefly talk about Chloe Zhao‘s latest feature, HAMNET that I had the privilege of seeing on TCFF’s opening night. The story is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same title, which reimagines the life of William Shakespeare, his spouse Agnes, and their three children.

In case you’re wondering, although Shakespeare’s wife’s name is typically written as Anne Hathaway, her father spelled it as Agnes in legal papers. It was quite normal for names to have different spellings, and the film even acknowledges that “Hamlet” and “Hamnet” were considered variations of the same name in Elizabethan England.

O’Farrell teamed up with Zhao to write the script, and the outcome is a beautiful, heart-wrenching, haunting cinematic work that truly ranks among the best of the year. The Oscar buzz is definitely in the air, and it’s totally deserved. I mentioned in this post that my money is on Jesse Buckley in the Best Actress category and possibly another directing nod for Zhao. Well, after seeing Hamnet, I’m championing Buckley to win Best Actress; it’ll be a travesty if she wasn’t nominated. While Shakespeare is the main draw and Paul Mescal does an impressive job of bringing the bard to life in his early days, the film truly belongs to Buckley.

I’m going to hold off on saying anything else until I finish my full review, so for now, I’ll share one of the tracks from the score by German composer Max Richter. I’m really into the atmospheric and haunting vibe of his scores, which mix postminimalism with contemporary classical. He tends to use a straightforward, clear musical style that’s both accessible and emotionally impactful, and he believes that being simple doesn’t mean lacking in complexity or beauty.

Stay tuned for more TCFF reviews in the coming days!