All Is True

source: All Is True

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.

This is a slow moving maudlin soap opera about the Bard coming back to Stratford to retire and try to reconcile family matters with the wife Anne nee Hathaway and the two daughters. The younger daughter, Judith, is still unmarried at the ripe old age of 28 and the prospects aren't looking good. The center of the plot is Hamnet, who was born Judith's twin but died when he was 11 of the plague. Shake wants to plant a garden in his honor but wifey Judi Dench and daughter take it upon themselves to remind Shake over and over that he didn't even make it back to S-U-A when Hamnet died. I suppose this soap opera being (allegedly) about Shakespeare gives it special meaning. Watching this awful drama I just thought praise heavens Shake that you went to London and stayed there most of the time because you would not have gotten anything accomplished in that freaking daily melodrama. If you like Judi Dench go for it. She has a great Elizabethan/Jacobean frown that pretty much carries through the film. I like her but didn't see where she made a difference. Ian McKellen as the Earl Of Southhampton yeah pretty good but he had some good lines, nice outfit and looked, well, properly ugly in an Elizabethan way. When wifey hears he might drop by she gets all over Shake about his sonnets since she figured he had the hots for the Earl. And the "cinematography" ain't all that much either. Can't carry this made-for-tv melodrama. So go see it for yourself. I just have no faith in Kenneth Branagh now, someone who's managed to make a career off Shakespeare. Finally got the nerve to get up and go for a drink of water 10-15 minutes before it was over, never to return.

I quite understand a lot of the criticism of those who dislike this film. To a public fed on fast-paced editing, frenetic camera movement, and constant plot development, this is bound to seem like a ponderous waste of time. But for those with the patience and wit to understand and appreciate, it is a delight. The criticism that seems nonsensical to me is that of all the literalists and historicists who are appalled that the film takes liberties with a few known details of Shakespeare's life. Did they miss the key scene when the young would-be writer comes to ask the Bard of Avon, among other things, how he could, without an Oxbridge education or experience of court or travel on the Continent, manage to convey so artfully and with such wisdom the affairs of high politics? The answer with which Branagh supplies his Shakespeare is also a direct answer to all the aristocrat-loving snobs who can't imagine that a middle-class countryman like WS could have written all these wonderful plays (though apparently they can easily imagine a high-born aristocrat who is widely conversant with the ways of the poor and middle-class); Branagh's Shakespeare's answer is simple: a man of genius with a decent-for-the-time education, of wide-ranging reading, and deep conversation with people of all stations, can with his knowledge of human behavior and the use of his creative IMAGINATION turn out the kind of plays that still speak to us across the centuries. Imagination is also the key to Branagh's depiction of the last days of Shakespeare, about which we actually know next to nothing. The acting in this film is superb, the script intelligent and moving, the cinematography gorgeous. The only reason I can't rate this movie a 10 are the few directorial cliches (why the slo-mo running?) in an otherwise excellent cinematic experience.

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

Can't remember when I saw such a good film acting, photography, sets everything

I loved this film and found it so worthwhile to watch, Kenneth Branagh moved me with his fantastic performance. A lovely film.

Despite usually being a fan of periodic dramas, we found this film incredibly boring. Perhaps then second half is better but after a tortuous first hour we left the cinema...

Unless you are Shakespeare aficionado curious about what his imagined retirement might have been like, then you'll probably find this film as dull as dishwater. It is slow and slightly precious. I sat there thinking IF this film wasn't supposedly about 'Shakespeare' but about a fictional non famous writer and his family soap opera would anyone be interested? It seems to have bypassed the drama and exhilarating pacing found in his plays and settled on a dry dot to dot joining of imagined dreary family episodes based on a few known facts. Dench and McKellen are sublime in some scenes, although Dench is clearly miscast due to the age difference and at times looks like Shakespeare's mother rather than wife. Branagh never really captures the period for me, and I felt at times that he could be acting in some contemporary West London, middle class, family drama about midlife re-evaluation, if you close your eyes so you can't see the elaborate make up and settings. Bland. Which is a shame because Shakespeare, although difficult but worthwhile, was never this boring.

I felt this as dreadful a movie as the British film industry can/could/would make. A top cast - with Brannagh (the exception) - did he think he was playing Cicero de Bergerac? Such a liberty taker - so awful in this as "Mr Big-Nose." Seems almost a script "writ" by a much younger Ben Elton - if only he had written that Dame Judi would change from "Oh ah, I'm a pirate!" to "M" from Jimmy Bond. What on earth Brannagh and "Lovie Ian" were doing mincing about with their puerile eyelid flashing beggars the bard's belief. This was dull drama - I would never watch this again, so please don't ask me! It would so violate my human rights darling!