All Is True

2018 • 100 minutes

About this movie

ALL IS TRUE explores the human story behind a dark and little known period in the life of William Shakespeare (Kenneth Branagh). The year is 1613 and Shakespeare is the greatest writer of the age. When his beloved Globe Theatre is burned to the ground, he decides to return to his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. There he faces his neglected family. Still haunted by the death of his only son, Hamnet, he struggles to mend broken relationships with his wife, Anne (Judi Dench) and daughters. In so doing he is forced to examine his own failings as an absent husband and father. In the search for peace, he must also finally confront the dark heart of his family’s secrets and lies.

Ratings and reviews

This film deserves a contradictory review in that it is a jangled mess of a mawkish interpretation of the imperfect facts that are known of William Shakespeare's life. This is deeply flawed and somewhat an obvious conversation between the script's writer (Ben Elton) and his immense subject. That does not mean it is an unenlightened dialogue and the film is truly sublime visually, in language, and in mood. Its clumsiness resides more in its earnestness than in any failing of script, and the performances are matched to the other rich elements. The main irritation, although only fleeting, is the gratuitous evocation of a multi-racialist narrative which is now de rigueur in British film and television.