The 2025 film Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao and based on Hamnet, is a deeply emotional meditation on love, grief, and artistic creation. While it tells the story of William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes following the death of their son, the film’s emotional and thematic architecture is profoundly shaped by the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Far from being a simple reference, this myth operates as a structural, symbolic, and philosophical backbone for the film, influencing everything from its narrative arc to its exploration of mourning and the transformative power of art.

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The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice: A Brief Overview

To understand the influence, it is important to revisit the original myth. Orpheus, a gifted musician, falls deeply in love with Eurydice. When Eurydice dies from a snakebite, Orpheus descends into the underworld, using his music to persuade Hades to allow her return. He is granted permission on one condition: he must not look back at her until they reach the surface. At the last moment, overcome by doubt and longing, he turns—and loses her forever.

This myth has endured for centuries because it encapsulates fundamental human experiences: love, loss, the desire to undo death, and the tragic limits of human agency. These same themes lie at the heart of Hamnet.

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The Myth Embedded in the Narrative

One of the most direct ways the myth influences Hamnet is through its literal inclusion in the story. Early in the film, Shakespeare tells Agnes the story of Orpheus and Eurydice during their courtship. This moment is not incidental—it establishes the emotional and thematic framework for everything that follows.

Critics have noted that this scene “contains the core of their love affair” and encapsulates the entire narrative trajectory. The myth becomes a kind of foreshadowing: a tragic love story introduced at the beginning that will later be mirrored in the couple’s own lives.

At first, the myth functions as romance. Shakespeare uses it to charm Agnes, presenting himself as a storyteller capable of transforming pain into beauty. But as the film progresses, the meaning of the myth deepens. It evolves from a tale of love into a lens through which the characters—and the audience—interpret grief.

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Grief as Descent into the Underworld

The most profound connection between Hamnet and the Orpheus myth lies in their shared depiction of grief as a journey into an emotional underworld.

After the death of their son Hamnet, both Agnes and Shakespeare undergo a psychological descent. This mirrors Orpheus’s literal descent into Hades. The underworld, in this sense, becomes a metaphor for mourning—a place of isolation, darkness, and longing.

The film repeatedly evokes this idea. The myth symbolizes “these underworlds into which the characters descend,” suggesting that grief itself is a kind of liminal space between life and death. Agnes, in particular, inhabits this space. Her connection to nature and intuition intensifies her experience of loss, making her grief feel almost mythic in scale.

Shakespeare, meanwhile, undertakes his own descent—not into a supernatural realm, but into artistic creation. His journey leads him to write Hamlet, transforming personal tragedy into enduring art. Like Orpheus, he attempts to retrieve something from the realm of the dead—not a living person, but memory, meaning, and emotional truth.

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The Failure to “Bring Back” the Dead

A central tragedy of the Orpheus myth is failure. Despite his extraordinary effort, Orpheus cannot bring Eurydice back. This sense of inevitable loss is mirrored in Hamnet.

Neither Agnes nor Shakespeare can recover their son. The film does not offer a miraculous reversal of death. Instead, it emphasizes the permanence of loss and the limits of human power—just as the myth does.

However, Hamnet reinterprets this failure in a more hopeful light. While Orpheus loses Eurydice forever, Shakespeare finds a way to “preserve” Hamnet through art. By writing Hamlet, he creates a space in which his son continues to exist symbolically.

This transformation is crucial. It suggests that while the dead cannot return physically, they can endure through storytelling. In this sense, Shakespeare succeeds where Orpheus fails—not by defying death, but by reshaping it.

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The Question of Looking Back

One of the most significant symbolic parallels between the myth and the film revolves around the act of “looking back.”

In the myth, Orpheus’s fatal mistake is turning to look at Eurydice. This moment has been interpreted in many ways: as a failure of faith, a human weakness, or an expression of overwhelming love.

In Hamnet, this question is explicitly raised. When Agnes hears the story, she asks why Orpheus looks back—a question that remains unanswered until the film’s conclusion.

The film itself becomes an exploration of this question. What does it mean to “look back” at the dead? Is it an act of love or a refusal to accept loss?

Agnes initially cannot engage with Shakespeare’s artistic response to grief. She feels abandoned, unable to find meaning in his work. But in the film’s climax, when she watches Hamlet, she finally “looks back” in a new way. She recognizes her son within the performance and understands Shakespeare’s attempt to memorialize him.

Unlike Orpheus’s backward glance, which destroys Eurydice, Agnes’s act of looking back leads to healing. The film thus reinterprets the myth, transforming its tragic lesson into one of reconciliation and shared understanding.

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Art as Orphic Power

Another key parallel lies in the role of art. In the myth, Orpheus’s music has the power to move gods and alter the natural order. Similarly, Hamnet presents art—specifically theater—as a transformative force.

Shakespeare’s writing becomes his equivalent of Orpheus’s music. It allows him to process grief and communicate emotions that cannot be expressed directly. The film suggests that art can bridge the gap between the living and the dead, creating a space where loss can be confronted and shared.

This idea is reinforced by the film’s ending, where Agnes experiences a moment of recognition during a performance of Hamlet. She sees her son reflected in the play and understands her husband’s grief.

In this sense, the theater becomes a kind of underworld—an imaginative space where the dead are temporarily brought back to life. But unlike the myth, this return is not illusory or doomed. It is meaningful, communal, and ultimately healing.

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Love, Memory, and Transformation

The love story between Shakespeare and Agnes is also shaped by the Orpheus myth. Their relationship is repeatedly compared to that of Orpheus and Eurydice, emphasizing its intensity and vulnerability.

However, Hamnet expands on the myth by focusing on mutual experience rather than singular heroism. In the original story, Orpheus is the central figure, and Eurydice is largely passive. In Hamnet, Agnes is equally central. Her grief, perspective, and emotional journey are given as much weight as Shakespeare’s.

This shift reflects a modern reinterpretation of the myth. Instead of a lone artist descending into the underworld, the film presents grief as a shared experience—one that affects relationships as much as individuals.

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Hamnet : A Modern Reinterpretation of an Ancient Myth

Ultimately, Hamnet does not simply borrow from the story of Orpheus and Eurydice—it reimagines it.

Where the myth emphasizes irreversible loss, the film emphasizes transformation. Where Orpheus fails, Shakespeare creates. Where Eurydice is lost, Hamnet is remembered.

The myth becomes a framework through which the film explores enduring questions:

• How do we live with grief?
• Can art truly preserve the dead?
• Is looking back an act of love or a dangerous illusion?

By engaging with these questions, Hamnet positions itself within a long tradition of works inspired by classical mythology. At the same time, it offers a distinctly modern perspective, one that values emotional connection and shared healing over heroic tragedy.

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The influence of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice on Hamnet is both profound and multifaceted. It shapes the film’s narrative structure, informs its central themes, and provides a symbolic language for exploring grief and artistic creation.

Through its reinterpretation of the myth, Hamnet transforms an ancient story of loss into a meditation on memory, love, and the redemptive power of art. It suggests that while we cannot bring back those we have lost, we can create meaning from their absence—and, in doing so, keep them alive in a different way.

In this sense, Hamnet becomes its own kind of Orphic work: a piece of art that ventures into the depths of human sorrow and returns with something enduring, beautiful, and profoundly human. Visit our old blog post about Shakespeare and Greek mythology to learn more about how Greek mythology influenced Shakespeare. Or visit the official site of the movie.