All Is True
Cert 12A; Now showing
All Is True was the alternative title of Shakespeare’s play Henry VIII, during a performance of which the Globe Theatre burnt down in 1613. Following the fire Shakespeare retired back to Stratford-Upon-Avon and never wrote again.
Ben Elton’s first feature screenplay sees a barely recognisable Kenneth Branagh play the Bard in these retirement years. Reviews are mixed but I rather enjoyed this accessible, light and interesting piece of Shakespearian retirement conjecture.
Shakespeare gets a mixed reaction when he returns to the family he has barely lived with for 20 years. His wife Anne (Judi Dench) is not used to having to defer to him, his eldest daughter Susanna (Lydia Wilson) is married to a puritan who wants Shakespeare’s money, his second daughter Judith (Kathryn Wilder) is full of anger — and, out of spite, refuses to marry because her father believes marriage is any woman’s greatest goal. (The reason for her anger is that in his endless guilt-fuelled idolisation of his dead son Hamnet, Judith’s twin, the inference is that the “wrong twin died”.)
There is plenty going on with regard to story, history, feminist viewpoint, showing what went before can be as effective as any manifesto, and armchair psychology.
Branagh also directs and it never gets too heavy, there are lots of light moments including Ian McKellen’s all too brief appearance as the Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare’s rumoured lover.
Strictly speaking Dench and McKellen are way too old for their roles: in 1613 Anne would have been 57, the Earl 40 — yet the casting works.
It is more drama, even pot boiler, than worthy biopic which angers some but makes it broadly accessible.