Genre: Drama
Related Titles: Shakespeare in Love, Bill, Macbeth
By Leanne Harragan
Shakespeare is acknowledged as the greatest writer of the age in 1613, but when the Globe Theatre burns down Shakespeare returns to Stratford. Once home, he has to deal with his past and neglected family.
This film despite what it says in the title seems according to most to be full of fiction rather than truths! Despite that Kenneth Branagh has created something that while it didn't particularly appeal to me will definitely have it's audience.
Shakespeare's life is pretty interesting really and even some of the things included in this film I didn't know or knew very little about so it's always nice to learn new things at the cinema. The film itself however, seriously seems to loses direction about half way through, it opens with a little bit of background to the final years of Shakespeare's life, the film carrying on from his returning home after the burning down of his Globe Theatre. From there it jumps from daughter to daughter and he does some gardening in the middle, argues with his wife and family and does some more gardening.
I can't fault the way this film looks or sounds. It's visually stunning with time being taken to create beautiful sweeping shots of the nature surrounding his home and the uses of colour in the garden with different autumn vs summer nature palettes being very well done. The score is also adds to the film nicely, bringing excitement, tension or a feeling of real melancholy during the sadder aspects of the film.
I also can't fault the performances. Hardly recognisable in his role, Branagh takes on the role of Shakespeare himself and does a brilliant job, he's witty and eventually you can warm to him and the relationships he reforges within his family. Judi Dench takes on the role of wife Anne Hathaway and while I knew that she was his wife, I knew very little about them as a couple. Dench brought a sense of vulnerability but also a kind of firm, unwavering resolute about her. It's an interesting balance of different natures that she brought to the role.
Honestly, if you're in anyway interested in the life of Shakespeare you might learn something new watching this but even then it's a just a little boring and slow. I'm sure that a film like that has it's audience but unfortunately this time, it wasn't for me.
Rating: 3/10
By Rebecca Mannick
Ok so this review is definitely going to be very very short. At first watching the trailer to All is True it looked quite interesting - I don't know a whole lot about Shakespeare's life so it seemed an intriguing topic to cover. However that couldn't be less of the case. I'm not evening lying Leanne had to nudge me in the cinema because I had started snoring LOL. I've only ever slept through one other movie and that was 'The Post' but only because I was jet-lagged - I had no excuse for this other than it was super boring.
It just a longed out story of Shakespeare's time back home and coming to terms with a life without his only son - and finally finding out the tragic truth to his death. There were many scenes in which were dragged out with no real purpose. There was no real storyline and nothing was really executed with conviction. I could probably hazard a guess in judging that this time in Shakespeare's life was the most boring and such a contrast to his high-flying life in London.
The score of three is solely based on the performances from some legendary actors. It also highlights that no matter how brilliant the acting is that nothing can recover a poor and uninteresting story. No ratings no recommendations - sorry.
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