Chloé Zhao’s Shakespeare drama has picked up the people’s choice award which has come to be a predictor of Oscar success
Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Hamnet has won this year’s people’s choice award at the Toronto film festival.
The acclaimed drama, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel, stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal and tells a fictionalised account of William Shakespeare and wife Agnes as they grieve for their young son.
The award has come to suggest future Oscar success with every recipient from 2011 to 2023 scoring either a best picture nomination or a win. Last year’s winner was Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck, starring Tom Hiddleston. The film later struggled at the box office upon release this summer. In a review for Vanity Fair, Richard Lawson called it a “disappointment” and added: “I don’t imagine a best picture nomination is in the offing.”
Hamnet premiered at the Telluride film festival to positive reviews and will be released later this year. It marks Zhao’s second people’s choice award after Nomadland in 2020.
