If you've been following the ongoing awards race, you can't have escaped the fact that Jessie Buckley has been lavished with acclaim for her leading turn in Chloé Zhao's film Hamnet.
After debuting at least year's Telluride Film Festival, early word on the film, and especially its devastating emotional impact, was ecstatic. Our own 5-star Radio Times review, was full of praise – with critic James Mottram calling it a "masterly study of loss". He added: "The finale, all set around a stage performance, lives long in the memory, making this quietly-hewn movie feel utterly wrenching."
Unsurprisingly, a glut of award nominations followed; for the film itself, for Zhao's direction, and of course for Buckley's leading turn – with Paul Mescal also picking up several nods for his supporting turn as Shakespeare (although he was snubbed by the Oscars).
View Green Video on the source websiteAs is often the way with these things, a fierce social media debate kicked off in response. Aren't all films, by their very nature, in the business of manipulating emotions, one side argued. Naysayers suggested it was a lack of subtlety that was the problem, with the film designed purely to elicit a strong emotional response without handling the film's themes with more care or depth.
"What makes it so moving is that in the scenes before his death, Hamnet exchanges the illness from his sister, giving his life for hers – and to see a young child display such fearlessness stuck with me," she continues.
As for whether the film is guilty of emotional manipulation, she said that while understanding that the impact may differ from viewer to viewer, the film "doesn’t force you to feel sad about what’s happened".
On the other extreme, senior film sub-editor and writer Calum Baker found that while he appreciated the clear, handmade quality of the film and the work of it's set designer and cinematographer, he was frustrated that it was told in "too broad [strokes] to find any specific texture or real insight".
Of the "would-be cathartic play performance" that serves as the film's emotional climax, Baker adds that he felt it "was built from shallow ideas and emotional conveniences". He continues: "Not once did I feel immersed, and functionally believe these events were happening to people; instead, I felt their planning, writing, staging and acting at every turn — their sheer contrivance."
Interestingly, Banerjee's own response to the film had been strong.
Regarding the accusations of emotional manipulation, Banerjee said while he considered it an "interesting take", it was not one he was inclined to agree with.
"And some films are going to be doing that much more than others, and some will be intended to do that much more than others," he continues. "I feel so much content that's out there, whether it's films or books or podcasts or TikTok videos, so much of it is based on tapping into people's emotional experience, and that's how media works."
"As a psychologist, I would definitely not feel comfortable to say, 'This is over the line. It's too emotional. This is going to be too moving.' I think that would be not a smart thing to do."
"One of the things we found in the Screen Test was that there were real variations in the level of empathic connection with what people are seeing on screen," he says.
"I think those emotional responses are really, really important, and some of them are definitely more powerful than others, and some are meant to be more powerful than others, and I don't think we should apologise."
Perhaps the simple answer is that looking at things through this lens is slightly missing the point. All art is manipulative to some degree by its very nature, and it simply depends on how much the individual viewer buys into the sincerity and the believability of the scenario being played out in front of them. Any number of factors can feed into that, and personal experiences and artistic preference has always meant that two different people can have entirely opposite emotional responses to the same material.
Even Baker, who had the most anti-Hamnet stance of those I spoke to, wasn't so sure we should be looking at things quite in this way.
At this point, perhaps I should confess that though there was plenty about Hamnet I greatly admired, I myself felt a little emotionally distant from the no doubt devastating events that were happening on screen. Indeed, there are many other films in the best picture line up at this year's Oscars that elicited a more profound and strong emotional response from me, including – in different ways – both Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent.
Perhaps then, it's best to retire the word "manipulative" – or at least be a little more selective about when we use it – when it comes to reviewing art. There are frankly better ways of articulating why something didn't work without insulting the genuine emotional responses of other viewers, many of whose reactions will be rooted in personal circumstance.
Hence then, the article about are you being emotionally manipulated why hamnet is splitting opinion was published today ( ) and is available on Radio Times ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Are you being emotionally manipulated? Why Hamnet is splitting opinion )
Also on site :