User Reviews

First, its special beauty has as source the status of hommage to William Shakespeare by Kenneth Branagh. If you do not ignore the great adaptations of the plays by Branagh, you understand why "All Is True" is a real special film. Second - for splendid photography . And for magnificent portrait of Anne Hathaway by Dame Judy Dench. And for the moments when the Shakespeare resemblance becomes almost...magic. And the music, off course. And the delicate use of themes.

Sins ? For me , it seems too...didactic. You know the life, you know the plays, you do not forget the verses. And you need a Shakespeare alive, of small gestures, not a package of explanations. I feel the meetings with the Earl of Southampton and Ben Jonson not real inspired used. Cliches, again and again, parts of lessons and something who you know deserves be better.

But, I admitt, I love it. For beauty, with so many faces and sources. And, off course, for "sins". And my old admiration for Kenneth Brannagh is more significant at the end of this film.

I appreciated this thoughtful film, and Branagh did a marvelous job helming it while also portraying Shakespeare. Another reviewer scoffed at the historical inaccuracy due to the real-life age difference between Branagh and Dench. This chronology was not distracting to me, because both actors gave convincing portrayals. Costumes and set design were outstanding. The gorgeous English countryside stood in as another character, of sorts. During the pre-release screening (USA), the director revealed a fascinating fact: several of the interior scenes were lit by candles, absent of any set lights. I was taken by Branagh's passionate and studied approach to Shakespeare, and this film is a fine example.

Directed, produced by, and starring Kenneth Branagh, All Is True is a pleasant enough film obviously born from great reverence, and, unsurprisingly, brilliantly acted, but is also a curiously formless piece of work, clumsily episodic in structure, and relatively free of conflict, focusing instead on non-incident and trees silhouetted against picturesque sunsets. By the very nature of the years during which it takes place (1613-1616), Ben Elton's screenplay is full of interpolations and suppositions, some of which are interesting, but many of which don't work. There's a much better film hidden in the contours of All Is True, a darker story examining Shakespeare's psychology; his inability to process the death of his son Hamnet, his guilt over the fact that he put his career ahead of his family, his possible misogyny, his obsession with his legacy. These issues are in the background, but they are not the focus, and whilst All Is True is perfectly fine, it's also perfectly forgettable.

Possibly a palette-cleanser for Branagh, allowing him to return to the familiarity of Shakespeare, after several years working on relatively impersonal projects, and with two blockbusters on the way, All Is True begins on June 29, 1613, as Shakespeare (Branagh) watches the Globe Theatre burn to the ground, after a canon misfired during a performance of All Is True. Devastated, Shakespeare retires and returns home to Stratford. Coldly received by his wife Anne (Judi Dench) and youngest daughter, Judith (a superb Kathryn Wilder), he gets a slightly better welcome from his eldest, Susanna (Lydia Wilson). Still mourning the death of Judith's twin, Hamnet (Sam Ellis), his only son, who died from plague aged 11 in 1596, Shakespeare decides to grow a garden to honour his memory. However, he must also try to deal with Judith's hatred for him, stemming from her conviction that he believes the wrong twin died.

The first thing to note about All Is True is how full of references it is to both Shakespeare's plays and incidents (or rumoured incidents) from his life. The idea that Shakespeare retired after the Globe fire is not original to the film, but was first hypothesised by Nicholas Rowe in 1709. Also, as the film shows, when a local man named John Lane (Sean Foley) accused Susanna of adultery, she and her puritan husband John Hall (Hadley Fraser) sued for slander. Also true is that in 1616, shortly after he married Judith, Thomas Quiney (Jack Colgrave Hirst) was charged with "carnal copulation". Admitting to the charge, he was fined five shillings, and Shakespeare altered his will so as to safeguard Judith's entitlements. A third example is a running joke concerning the matrimonial bed. When Shakespeare returns to Stratford, Anne sees him more as a guest, and so assigns him the best bed, as was customary for visitors, whilst she takes the second-best bed. Over the course of the film, he continually tries to work his way back into her good graces (i.e. back into her bed). Famously, Shakespeare left Anne "my second best bed" in his will, something which has caused debate amongst scholars.

Elsewhere, there are references to Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare scares Lane from testifying against Susanna by threatening to tell the Moorish actor who played Aaron, and who is in love with Susanna, about Lane's accusations); The Merry Wives of Windsor (the composition of which Anne points out was what Shakespeare did to avoid dealing with the death of Hamnet); Macbeth ("I once uprooted an entire wood and moved it across a stage to Dunsinane"); The Winter's Tale (Shakespeare mentions that Ben Jonson "laughs at me because I speak no Greek and don't care whether Bohemia has a coast"); the legend that Shakespeare was caught poaching deer from Thomas Lucy's land (during an argument, Shakespeare tells Lucy, "I wish I had poached your bloody deer" - although, in reality, Lucy died in 1600); Robert Greene's contemptuous reference to Shakespeare as, amongst other things, an "upstart crow"; and Richard Burbage ("a brilliant lunatic actor"). I'm also fairly sure Branagh quotes himself at one point; arriving back at Stratford, a shot from inside the Shakespeare house shows the door opening and Shakespeare standing in the doorway, heavily silhouetted against the light, which is exactly how we first see Henry in Branagh's Henry V (1989).

A critical scene, and easily the best in the film, involves Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (Ian McKellen) visiting Stratford. Discussing his identity as the "fair youth" to whom Shakespeare addresses the first 126 sonnets, Southampton points out, "it was only flattery of course". When Shakespeare responds, "except, I spoke from deep within my heart", Southampton dismisses him, "well, I was younger then. Younger and prettier". Shakespeare then quotes in its entirety Sonnet 29, with Branagh reading it as an agonised ode to an impossible love. He then alludes to the fact he'd always hoped Southampton may have one day reciprocated his love, to which Southampton reacts sternly, telling him, "you forget yourself, Will, it is not your place to love me". Getting up to leave, Southampton then also recites Sonnet 29, with McKellen's intonation changing it into a celebration of the power of art to transcend such foolish distractions as love. It's a beautifully shot, incredibly well acted, and nuanced scene that, if it accomplishes nothing, serves to remind us just what talented actors can do when reciting the exact same text.

One of the film's main themes is, of course, family, with Elton's script focusing on how resentful Anne and especially Judith have become of Shakespeare. We don't know a great deal about the real Judith, so much of Elton's characterisation is speculative. The film's Judith is essentially a protofeminist, a brilliant, complex, and acerbic woman railing against the narrow-minded patriarchy her father endorses. The likelihood of this being the case is slim at best, but Wilder is excellent in the part and makes Judith much more believable than the character has any right to be. Where Elton is more successful, and on firmer factual ground, is that Shakespeare's interest in his daughters' marriages revolves primarily (if not exclusively) around whether they can give him male grandchildren, now that Hamnet can't carry on the family name. The film acknowledges that Shakespeare was a neglectful father and husband, and never fully gets behind him as he defends himself by citing the cultivation of his genius, pointing out that his talents made the family very wealthy, and thus he should be excused. However, by the end, even he doesn't believe this himself, coming to understand the price his family paid for his greatness.

However, there are some considerable problems. First and foremost is the script, which has a strangely formless structure, derived from an extremely episodic organisational principal, with scene after scene addressing one and only one issue at a time, ensuring each issue is cleared before moving onto the next. Scenes often involve the characters saying only what is necessary to get to the next scene, with little room to breathe, almost as if we're watching a "previously on" montage of a TV show. Because of this, when we do get scenes that are given a bit of time, such as the Southampton scene, they stick out, stylistically detached from the surrounding material.

Another issue with the script is its use of 21st-century gender politics. The question the film raises is an interesting one - was Shakespeare so ensconced in patriarchal thinking that the lack of a male heir blinded him to the fact that one of his daughters may have had the ability to carry on his poetic legacy, if not his name. With every woman around Shakespeare a protofeminist, each of them more progressive (in the modern sense of the term) than him, the film builds to the moment when he comes to see they were right all along, scolding himself for his short-sightedness and boldly embracing the idea of gender equality. It's a poor attempt to graft contemporary ideology onto an epoch that simply had different beliefs. It's one thing to say Shakespeare may have been in been in favour of the female parts being played by women. It's one thing to say that The Taming of the Shrew may have been written to satirise and mock misogynistic attitudes rather than endorse them. It's something else entirely to say that Shakespeare, by the end of his life, was a feminist, and would eagerly have burnt his bra.

The casting is also problematic. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Dench and McKellen as much as the next man, but that doesn't change the fact that they are both badly miscast. Both play their characters as elderly, but in 1613-1616, Anne (played by the 84-year-old Dench) was 57-60, and Southampton (played by the 79-year-old McKellen) was only 40-43. Additionally, Anne was six years older than Shakespeare, but Dench is 26 years older than Branagh, and it shows, serving only to distract from the content.

As a Kenneth Branagh fan (and a fan of Ben Elton's wonderfully irreverent comedy Upstart Crow (2016)), I was disappointed with All Is True. Equal parts sullen and playful, Branagh's Shakespeare is both an extraordinary genius, not of the ilk of everyday mundanity, and a man who lives in the world and must deal with its absurdities. The film tries to strike a balance between a laid-back and wistful story about a retired writer, and a study of filial grief, with the dawning realisation that much of that grief could have been avoided. Some elements unquestionably work; the Southampton scene, Shakespeare's struggle to reconcile his genius with the personal cost of that genius for both himself and others, Judith's resentment of Hamnet. But a lot doesn't work. It's an inoffensive and perfectly fine film, but given the director and the subject, it could, and should, have been so much better.

It has been years since a Kenneth Branagh film made me feel something in the way this does. His Hollywood success has also been accompanied by a change in directorial style and a change in his focus on storytelling ... but this film returns to what made him so great early on ... a passion for the subject material. The end result is a period film that feels actually of the period, while also fully modern. Every frame of film is like a historical painting. And the story and characters are fully expressed. Slow, patient, sad, and beautiful - this is a wonderful film with wonderful writing, acting and directing. The pacing and editing is deliberate. What some critics have considered to be slow or meandering I would call the story taking it's time and earning it's value. Highly recommended.

There are so many mysteries in history, things we'll never know for sure. For instance, everything about Shakespeare is slightly mysterious. This movie focus on his last years and it is based on the very few written documents regarding Shakespeare's family and affairs. This script, based on those few, arid legal documents is pure speculation, but loving speculation from someone who admires Shakespeare a good deal.

We can travel back in time and watch what could have been the final part of Shakespeare's life, back home. Played by Kenneth himself, Will is a slightly disappointed man, who at first does not find much comfort in his family. His wife Anne is resentful, his spinster daughter Judith even more so. Married daughter Susanna is also unhappy, but most of all Will is grieving for the loss of his only son, Hamnet. Allegedly struck down at 11 by the plague over 10 years earlier, Hamnet used to send poems to his father.

Will believes his son to have had a great literary talent and that makes him ever more disconsolate by his premature departure. Judith, being Hamnet's twin sister thinks her father would have preferred her to die and she's obviously hurt. However, there is a secret waiting to be told, which will contribute to give Will the closure he so much needs.

A word about the actors: Branagh is excellent as Shakespeare, definitely not recognizable as himself, but Judi Dench, playing wife Anne is too old for the part. As mentioned by many, Anne was only a few years older than William, but in this movie she could be his mother. Beautifully shot in the English countryside, the movie has an artistic quality to it, an atmospheric melancholic feeling that will be appreciate by many, but definitely not a movie for the masses.

When the Globe Theater burns down during a performance of Henry VIII, William Shakespeare (Kenneth Branagh) decides it's time to retire to Stratford-on-Avon and take up gardening. However, a troubled family past, including the death of his son Hamnet, a strained relationship with wife Ann (Judi Dench), one daughter married to a Puritan and the other depressed and single, leads to uncovering falsehoods.

Ben Elton's witty script, full of Shakespearian quotes, is a delight in the mouths of Sir Kenneth and Dame Judy -- who seems to be in more movies now that she's retired than before. Zac Nicholson's cinematography is wonderful, making everything look like contemporary paintings, and the occasional admiring, notable visitor, like Gerard Horan as Ben Jonson and Ian McKellan as the South Earl of Northhampton serve to illuminate the central characters.

For some reason, critics and general viewers have been lukewarm. Me, I think it's a very good script, great pictures and fine actors. It's not a classic, but it was a fine couple of hours.

This is like watching the Ben Elton sitcom The Upstart Crow and finding out that the cast has been replaced by different actors.

Written by Ben Elton who this time has cut the jokes. Kenneth Branagh directs and stars as William Shakespeare in his retirement years in Stratford Upon Avon after the Globe theatre burnt down in London.

It is disconcerting to see Branagh looking like Ben Kingsley in this film. Judi Dench plays his wife Ann Hathaway, although the real Ann was eight years older than her husband. Judi Dench is twenty six years older than Branagh, the age difference is noticeable.

This is a melancholy and fictionalised film. The autumnal colour palette sees Shakespeare at the end of his life haunted by the death of his son Hamnett many years earlier. He died at the age of eleven during an outbreak of the bubonic plague.

Shakespeare feels guilty that he was not there when his son died and after all these years he has unanswered questions. Being at home he needs to connect with his estranged wife and also need to deal with his daughters, one is still unmarried, the other has marital issues.

Despite his fame, Shakespeare suffers from an inferiority complex due to his family's social standing. His father had debts and this is touched upon when Shakespeare has to put up with barbed comments from local landowner and when he receives a visit by the Earl of Southampton (Ian McKellen.)

I think there was no need for so much prosthetics on Branagh. It was distracting. The story is superficial, it really is meditating on loss, grief and old age. Yet is was heavy going and only livened up when McKellen showed up.

I liked Elton's The Upstart Crow and this needed the cheeky zippy fun of that series.





e film imagines Shakespeare coming home to Stratford for good after the fire, yearning for a prosperous and peaceful retirement but now forced to confront long-suppressed feelings about the death of his son 17 years before. He must deal with the angry, conflicted and still unmarried Judith, and her troubled sister Susanna, married to Dr John Hall - and also his stolidly unimpressed wife Anne. Both daughters create social upset for Shakespeare, who despite his fame is yearning for bourgeois respectability in the provinces. But the awful memory of Hamnet keeps coming back. He angrily disputes ownership of grief with Anne and Judith, pointing out that he feels as deeply as they. But Dench brings an acid rebuke to Anne's reply that, at the time of his Hamnet's death, he was writing The Merry Wives of Windsor.

A stunning slow paced beautifully shot movie. Ignore the bad reviews, take a breathe and enjoy the pace.

This is a remarkable, well researched, and speculative story penned by Ben Elton and directed by Kenneth Branagh who pours his genius and reverence for the Bard into an elegant star performance as a flawed William Shakespeare during the last few years of his life. We follow Will from as he leaves London on June 29, 1613 and goes back to his family home in Stratford-upon-Avon where he lives for three years until his death, on April 23, 1616, his own birthday. The reason for his departure is that an explosion of a prop canon caused a fire that burned down the Globe Theatre in London; this catastrophic event occurred during the run of Henry VIII, alternatively known by the title, All Is True.

Dame Judy Dench crinkles and shines as Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's elder wife, and Sir Ian McKellen turns in a rollicking, brilliant turn as the Earl of Southampton. I heartily enjoyed Kathryn Wilder, (a bold, talented actress that Branagh has taken to casting in recent years), in her strong, riveting performance as Judith Shakespeare, the twin of Hamnet, Shakespeare's only son, (who died in childhood). Judith is wracked with a complex case of survivor's guilt; she wrestles with this torment in a narrative that interweaves with William's belated, melancholy, multi-layered grief for his departed son.

Early on in the film, a young writer, an admirer of Will's prodigious talent, approaches Shakespeare as he is tending to a starter garden he has thrown his energy into as a way to process the loss of Hamnet as well as the recent changes in his life. Although Will is resistant to speak with the lad, a wonderful conversation unfolds in which the youth questions how Shakespeare, with his limited amount of travel and schooling, could have written with such depth, breadth, surety, and expertise about the world and it's people. The answer, in pure Stratfordian mode, (that of one who believes as I do that "the plays of Shakespeare were written by the man from Stratford, of the same name"), gifts us in the moste astute, poetic, Branagh-esque delivery, with one of the most memorable lines in the film, "Do you want to be a writer, and speak to others and for others? Speak first for yourself. Search within. Consider the contents of your own soul. Your humanity. And if you're honest with yourself, then whatever you write, all is true."

The William Shakespeare in this film espoused that one must take what one knows and use imagination to flush out the rest. This seems to wink at the Shakespeare authorship question, and provide an ironic wink to the film itself. May it be said that "All Is True" in this historically inspired, suppositional story about a playwright that wrote historically inspired, suppositional stories? Heck no! But the result was, to me, a tale of beauty that managed to toss into the mix a tongue-in-cheek gander at the intriguing "second best bed" part of Will's will, in which he left this bed to his wife, Anne.

This tale explores details that are known about Shakespeare and his family and takes an imaginative, explorational look at the relationships with his wife and daughters as well as his daughters own family affairs. Sonnets are recited, drinks and laughs are had with McKellen's guilded Southampton. Dame Dench, though a great deal older than Ken, was, to my taste, a delightful choice for this role. The film, which moves slowly and is quite dark in mood at times, also sparks with the brilliant, buoyant, Branagh directing touch, made with love, and I loved it well.

I don't understand all the hate!

This film was a beautiful, low key escape to a time and place, green, lucious & less sensationalised.

For what is was, it couldn't be better.

All Is True is an incredible and beautifully filmed period drama. It has an incredible lead performance from Kenneth Branagh and great supporting performances from Judi Dench and Ian McKellen, making it an intimate and emotional look at the last days of Shakespeare's life. Although in some scenes it feels more like a play than a movie.

The film for large parts is not all that memorable but never the less enjoyable at the same times. At times it is witty, others heartwarming and other times ventures into the darkness of loss and emotional rifts in a family all in a rather understated manner. Yes I may well not remember much about it come the end of the year but for a low budget drama it is excellently acted and very enjoyable indeed without being particularly spectacular.

This was beautiful in many ways. Lovely photography and music by Patrick Doyle. Well acted of course by Kenneth Branagh and Judy Dench. A very nice screenplay by Ben Elton who is more famous for his comedy writing. He also wrote the wonderful TV series "Upstart Crow" which is a funny view of Shakespeare. This film is much more serious. I don't understand why this film has such a low IMDB rating.

A rather melancholy account of Shakespeare's declining years in Stratford, though there are a few more cheerful moments to lighten the gloom. Shakespeare comes home to stay after having been mostly absent in London for the past twenty years, still brooding over the death of his son Hamnet, and is given a moderate welcome by his wife Anne (the ever reliable Judi Dench) and his two daughters. There are some amusing references to the 'second best bed' (which Shakespeare famously left his wife in his will) and a rather unlikely plot about some poetry which may or may not have been written by the long dead Hamnet. Meanwhile his daughters have their own problems. It is all a bit sad and slow, but with some pleasant touches that make it worth watching.

It's curious that we have a movie about William Shakespeare bearing a name like All Is True when the largest portion of it may well not be. But of course, how could any of this be known when it all took place so very long ago and, so little survives or had been recorded about the famous Bard. Writer Ben Elton has donned both his creative hats for this concoction - that of total fictional fabrication and 'what we think to know' presumptions.

Director/actor Kenneth Branagh while wanting to accurately transcribe the times may have forgotten that it's also important to entertain his audience and allow them to enjoy the visual treats of sets, costumes, and creating a mood via creative lighting. His sets are so gloomily lit there's a tenancy to lull the viewer to sleep. A particularly slow pace could even leave some reaching for the 2 x times remote. This need not have been - broad subjects such as this, set in dark times, under other great lighting/cameramen have allowed us to be transported back to bygone candle/gaslight days by using deep blacks and well-lit subjects that allowed viewers to feel the era and enjoy the rich moods simultaneously. For an artificial interpretation of reality, a thinking audience will forgive any production that considers their visual appreciation over sombre moods.

Modern liberties seem to have been catered for by suggesting that Will's Sonnets may have been written for another bloke - in this case the Earle of Southampton. Not sure where Elton came up with this suggestion as there doesn't appear all that much documentation to build on that assumption. We learn that Mr Shakespeare did not attend University, somewhat proving that a University degree can't always account for intelligence, and that his wife Anne was illiterate. There are other family intrigues to offer personal interest but what promised to be an enlightening experience comes across as a tad too heavy-handed and at times inaccessible.

Performances are good but still remains for dedicated Shakespeare followers only, and some won't even last the distance - it's not that its overlong, just takes it's time telling its (largely fabricated) story.

John Madden's 1998 film "Shakespeare in Love" proposed a secret love affair as being the inspiration behind Shakespeare's most popular play, "Romeo and Juliet." The film's widespread success revealed the public's longing to find a real human being behind the name of the iconic poet and playwright who composed at least 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and five long narrative poems, but whose life story we know little about. Written by Ben Elton, the latest attempt to shed some light on the subject is Kenneth Branagh's All is True, a film that focuses on the poet's last years in Stratford-upon-Avon after his premature retirement in 1613. While it is a work of speculative fiction, by borrowing the mysterious alternative title of Shakespeare's "Henry VIII," Branagh implies (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) that the film reflects true events.

All Is True opens as Shakespeare (Branagh), vowing to never write again after the Globe Theater burned to the ground in 1613, returns to his Stratford home after an absence of 21 years. From the outset, the feeling tone is one of wistful sadness enhanced by shots by cinematographer Zac Nicholson of autumn leaves drifting slowly to the ground. One almost expects to hear Frank Sinatra in the background singing "September Song." Taking a page from his most famous play "Hamlet," William is visited on his arrival by the ghost of his son Hamnet (Sam Ellis), who died at the age of 11 and who offers his father some of his poems to read. Saddled with a prosthetic nose and hairline, Branagh resembles a figure being geared for display at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.

Though historically not in evidence, Shakespeare is shown being welcomed by the townsfolk with a reverence usually reserved for the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is greeted coldly, however, by his wife Anne, played by the great Judi Dench ("Victoria and Abdul") and his daughter Judith (Kathryn Wilder), but with slightly less chill by daughter Susannah (Lydia Wilson). Accused by his wife of not mourning Hamnet at the time of his death, William insists that he did mourn Hamnet but Anne retorts, twisting the knife, "You mourn him now. At the time you wrote 'Merry Wives of Windsor'" (a farcical comedy). Judith's resentment is said to stem from her belief that her father thinks that "the wrong twin died," while Susanna cannot help but notice William's disdain for her marriage to local physician John Hall (Hadley Fraser), a man of strict Puritan leanings.

Tormented by the death of his son whom he believed was a promising poet whose writing showed "wit and mischief," the film proceeds episodically through William's lonely planting of a garden in Hamnet's memory, his strained relationship with his wife Anne, and his conflicts with his two daughters. Shakespeare emphatically tells his younger daughter Judith that she should marry and provide him with a male heir. Though he rages that his talent made the family very wealthy and was not appreciated, he later begins to understand the price they paid for his genius. One of the film's high points is the exchange during an unlikely visit to Stratford by the prettified 3rd Earl of Southampton, played by the forty-years-too-old Ian McKellen ("Mr. Holmes").

The Earl brings up his identity as the "fair youth" of Shakespeare's Sonnets, pointing out that "it was only flattery, of course," to which the Bard responds, "Except, I spoke from deep within my heart." "But I was so young and pretty, then," Southampton responds. When they take turns in reciting Shakespeare's immortal Sonnet 29, asserting the great author's tender feeling towards the Earl, we at last get a glimpse of Shakespeare's true greatness. While the film has considerable pleasures including striking performances by Dench and Branagh, basically, All is True exists primarily as a vehicle to promote the traditional view of Shakespeare's authorship, now coming under attack from various quarters, most prominently from the growing interest in other candidates.

Contrary to its perceived intention, however, the film is neither edifying nor convincing in its attempt to put a human face on a cipher who lacks history, personality, or indeed any semblance of a biography, and whose life story, as it has come down to us, has no connection to the many-faceted genius revealed in the plays and poems. Ignoring the fact that Shakespeare was a tax evader, money lender, profiteer, and grain hoarder, Branagh and Elton envision Shakespeare as a genius capable of any literary feat imaginable. In one scene, an aspiring writer asks the Bard how he accomplished what he did without any schooling past the age of 14, without traveling outside of England, or having ready access to the immense learning evident in the plays.

The answer is right out of the Stratfordian playbook of miracles, "What I know . . . I have imagined," he says, asking us to accept that Shakespeare's knowledge of philosophy and astronomy, theology and the law, foreign languages, music, medicine, and court intrigue all came from his vivid imagination. In its attempt to make the implausible plausible, however, Branagh dumbs Shakespeare down enough to persuade us that he is just a "storyteller," an ordinary fellow after all, with domestic problems just like the rest of us. At one point, William proclaims with un-Shakespeare-like banality, "I've lived so long in imaginary worlds, I think I've lost sight of what is real." We might also say that is true of the traditional Shakespeare biography.

Branagh seemed stuck with inertia in this period piece as he seemed to consider every sentence before speaking.. However, the rest of the cast were not so dumbstruck and if anything this little tale served to ensure that Shakespeare was first a man of his time and not just a playwrght. Excellent production, but this was rather slow and plodding but was well served by some fine cameos, particularly from Judi Dench and Ian McKellen.

Superb acting (of course). Exquisitely beautiful cinematography and design values. (The lighting is perfect - candles or daylight at the tall windows.)

I also thought the script was excellent--deep, true, meaningful. I find it hilarious that so much of the negative reviews of this film focus on "historical inaccuracies" or "anachronistic sexual politics." Wasn't there once a great writer who modified the facts in his historical writings to make the stories dramatically powerful and appealing to a contemporary audience? Who was that? Oh, yeah. SHAKESPEARE!

You certainly can't fault the look of Kenneth Branagh's "All is True" or Branagh's desire to get it right. This is his film about the last days of a certain William Shakespeare, Esquire, playwright and poet of this parish and Branagh plays Shakespeare, (naturally). The script is by Ben Elton and it does feel like one artist's, (or in this case, two artist's), tribute to another though it's clear that Elton and Branagh are no Bards. This may be a gorgeous looking film, well acted, especially by Ian McKellen as the Earl of Southampton and the object of Will's deepest affection, (it would appear Mr Shakespeare was at least bisexual), but otherwise very much on the dull side. There is drama to be had from the material, (intrigues etc. amongst the family), but it never comes to life. This is an airless film that just about creeps along. Kudos and prizes certainly to Cinematographer Zac Nicholson; otherwise very much a waste of time.

Powerful, justified and brilliant. Shakespeare is brought to life as the fragile genius you read in his work. Passionately displayed and full of mischief. However, had potential to be slow at times.

Did Ben Elton ever actually have any talent? As much as he was king of comedy in the 80s - mostly in collaborations - his work since has been so dire that it makes you wonder. Sometimes an artist can get the appearance of talent from being in the right place, with the right people, at the right time. Anyway, this is slow, clunky, and arrogant in that Elton seems to think he is an adequate model for his subject - that, because he and Shakespeare are both writers, it is enough to look at himself to find out how Shakespeare ticked. It's like a mouse thinking it knows what it's like to be a lion, because they both have four legs.

Of course, you can argue that it's impossible to explain a genius, and it's always going to be difficult even to represent the genius of a writer on screen; but it's pointless making a film about someone like Shakespeare, whose actual life was humdrum, unless you can do it somehow. Surely they should have found a way to incorporate a few speeches - ones relevant to the character's life situation - from the plays? But as it is this doesn't come anywhere close: where Shakespeare constantly startles you with his insight, so original and yet so true, everything said by these characters is of the most obvious imaginable. Writing about the great does not in itself produce a great piece: the danger is that, actually, you only show up your own mediocrity.

It looks nice, courtesy of director and star Kenneth Branagh, but as actor his Bard is an insipid man; and it's frankly taking the mick to cast octogenarian Judi Dench as his wife. If it was the other way round - an actor of 80 playing a man married to a woman of 50, and supposed to be roughly her age - there would be howls of outrage.

Great acting, script, photography, music, atmosphere. I was moved to tears on several occasions. I laughed out loud many times. I doubted Ben Elton's capacity to sustain quality writing for a complete film but...he does it here. If there is a finer film than this in 2019 I hope I get to see it. Maybe I'm a simple soul and easy to please (oh no I'm not!) but I can't understand the 6 and 1 out of ten. Clearly more intellectual and demanding than me. The Swan of Sheffield

Given his continued fame as the greatest playwright who ever lived, you'd be surprised at just how few films there are out there that detail the personal life of William Shakespeare. Of course, a key reason for that is that there just isn't all that much on record about his private life.

And that's where films like All Is True come in. Taking some bold historical interpretations from the information available, the film comes up with an engrossing and emotionally riveting story, with an intimacy that makes for enthralling watching throughout, although its credentials as a historical piece are a little undermined by the fact that its story should be taken with rather a large pinch of salt.

But historical accuracy doesn't always have to tell the whole story, and when it comes to the plot at hand, All Is True does a rather good job at making it an engrossing watch, particularly as it centres on the unexpected domestic turbulence of the Shakespeare household upon his final return from London.

Proving an intriguing character study that opens up differing perspectives on Shakespeare as a man, the film manages to give an intimate and deep portrayal of the great writer's inner psyche, and whether or not it matches with the reality of history, it makes for fascinating viewing, with strong drama pulsating right the way through the film.

Kenneth Branagh's performance as Shakespeare is great, and he gives a measured and impressively down-to-earth portrayal of a historical figure that most of us - who know next to nothing about Shakespeare (myself included) - would expect to be something different. In that, while the film does look at the nature and importance of his great body of work, he's actually a very likable and engrossing lead for the story at hand.

So, as an intimate personal drama, All Is True does a pretty good job, but there's of course the overhanging question of its historical accuracy. Of course, as I said earlier, a good drama is still a good drama whether or not it tells a historically perfect story, but there is something to be said about a film that feels like it's masquerading as an entirely accurate account of a fairly unprovable period of history.

In comparison to something like The Eagle Has Landed, which is a great deal of fun even though you know it's not real history, All Is True deliberately gives off the air of a standard historical biopic, even though a large proportion of its history is made through interpretation. Of course, it's fair to say that other portrayals of Shakespeare on film should be subject to the same criticism considering how little is known about his private life, but there is something a little underwhelming and disappointing when you watch a film that seems like true history, but in all truth most likely is not.

That's not to say it's an entirely falsified piece, and the core, factual information of Shakespeare's family life is there in plain sight, but when it comes to some of the story's more outlandish historical interpretations, it's something to bear in mind if you're looking to watch the film as an educational piece as well as a dramatic one.

Finally, while the movie does do a good job at providing intimate and engrossing emotional drama throughout, it just misses out on an extra level of depth in its portrayal of the last days of the great Shakespeare. In comparison to Mr. Holmes, which details the years of an aged Sherlock Holmes, All Is True doesn't quite have that fleeting elegance that suits its story so well, and that occasionally comes back to bite the film when it's really trying to hit home with its core emotion.

Overall, All Is True is an engrossing personal drama, with strong and intimate emotion throughout that tells a fascinating dramatic story, furthered by an excellent lead performance from Kenneth Branagh. Its historical accuracy is certainly debatable, something that occasionally proves frustrating when looking for real emotional power, but it doesn't take away from an enthralling drama at the centre.

In 1613, the Globe in London staged a production of the play 'Life of Henry VIII' which ended in tragedy as the building burned down due to a faulty stage prop. After this, Shakespeare took an early retirement and travelled back to his family home in Stratford-upon-Avon. This film focuses on his time getting to terms with the family life he's missed out on during his career and his existential struggle with life's meaning without being able to write. There's no one else better to have tackled the project than the lovely Kenneth Branagh who is perhaps the leading pioneer in continuing Shakespeare's work in modern cinema, with an epic production of Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing and Henry V in his canon. Here he directs, produces and stars as William himself and does a fantastic job in each role. The performances are all really good; Kathryn Wilder and Lydia Wilson are both brilliant as Shakespeare's daughters, Judith and Susanna. Judi Dench is amazing as always in the role of his wife, Anne Hathaway; she captures the frustration of an absent partner and the force of will to carry on in difficult times in a really moving way. Visually it is also a work of art in certain places; the opening shots of Shakespeare standing in a field, a long shot of the family received good news later in the story. These moments could've easily been filmed in a straight forward fashion but instead here are given a real beautiful stance which is one of the triumphs of the film. It finds visual beauty in the simplest things. However, despite all that's good here, I did ultimately feel it doesn't amount to much and is surprisingly forgettable after a while. There are sequences that can drag and although the film does want you to sympathise with Shakespeare's character, it is sometimes hard to do so considering his delayed reaction to a certain important event that happens at the beginning. Nevertheless, the talent and passion involved is unquestionable and that's enough to make it an interesting watch on a rainy afternoon