A weakness of movie criticism is that one is expected to capture the essence of a film on a single viewing in some solid, permanent manner. Now that I’ve worked through several long-form studies of films in very short bites at a time, I notice the pitfalls of the traditional approach.

Movies have a way of shape shifting over time, and sometimes within the film itself. The opinion we have one moment can alter in the next scene. We also bring so much into our first viewing of a movie — knowledge about the subject, expectations of the genre, comparisons with the source material, the gravitational pull of movie stars and A-list directors. Even the theater itself, our mood going into the viewing and the fellow audience members affect the atmosphere.

Going into “Hamnet,” I had these thoughts in mind: it’s taking forever for this movie, scheduled for 1 p.m., to get started. Why must an AMC theater presentation begin 22 minutes after its scheduled time? After five trailers and numerous commercials, why do they need to tack on one more about the significance of being inside a Dolby Theater?

And that sound demonstration has an effect too, because I probably spent an excessive amount of time paying attention to this movie’s soundscape purely because AMC basically insisted that I do so. Fortunately, the sound designers did a fine job on this one and it was attention well spent.

Another thing on my mind — why does this fancy recliners-everywhere theater put up these walls between each row that are so high that you can’t fully recline your seat without blocking part of the screen? Getting the recliners just so takes some effort and the recliners make noise, so I feel obliged to not adjust them again once it begins.

Ok, that gets me into the movie and for close to 90 minutes of its two hour or so runtime, I have a very specific complaint about “Hamnet” — which is the way this movie shifts the camera’s attention freely, but clearly stays within the narrative frame of mind of Jessie Buckley’s Agnes throughout. I’ve read since watching it that the novel this film is based on is a stream of consciousness purely from her point of view, and that makes sense. But from a narrative perspective, it has weaknesses — namely that the audience never really gets to know Hamnet, for whom the film is named.

Hamnet is little more than an object in this movie, the reason for the grief that must be expressed and explored to complete the relationship between Agnes and William. And it gets there, eventually, but it’s a frustrating 90 minutes until taking that final turn towards the Globe Theater-centered conclusion.

Do not go into Hamnet expecting a moment of joy. It’s hard to see how Shakespeare ever created a comedy while living this dismal life. Perhaps he relied completely on his experiences in the theater. Then again, this movie isn’t about Shakespeare at all, it’s about a fictional version of him that exists purely within his fictional partner’s mind.

I won’t write much about the final half hour because I think it needs to be experienced fresh and in context of the film. I also took heavy preconceptions into the staging of Hamlet. I’ve seen dozens of Hamlet performances in my life and have read several books on the play’s genesis. I’ll just say that I came in skeptical of the personal grief theory of the play that this movie proposes, and damn, Chloe Zhao pulled it off.

One final preconception that’s inescapable about this movie: it’s clearly Oscar bait, so every discussion we will see of it in the next several months will speculate on which awards it will be nominated for and/or win. Like most movies, Hamnet would benefit from not winning Oscars and taking on those ridiculous expectations.

It’s a movie that lets grief wash over you — it brought out some in me unrelated to the movie. If the movie doesn’t work for you this way, it’s probably a complete waste of time.