Butler's Cinema Scene

Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench

“ALL IS TRUE” My rating: B

101 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Aside from what’s to be gleaned from his plays and poems, we know next to nothing about William Shakespeare.

Kenneth Branagh’s “All Is True” attempts to rectify that by imagining the great writer’s final days.

The screenplay by Ben Elton informs us up front that in 1613 at the premiere in London of “Henry VIII” a prop cannon started a fire that destroyed Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.  At that point the bard vanished from public life; he is not known to have written another play.

According to “All Is True,” Shakespeare (Branagh, almost unrecognizable with receding hairline, beard and prosthetic nose) retired to his native Stratford on Avon to be reunited with the wife and children he had kept at arm’s length for decades.

It’s not a joyous homecoming. His arrival is met with indifference by wife Anne (Judi Dench), who has more or less been a widow to her husband’s literary and theatrical career. (“To us you’re a guest.”)

Nor are Shakespeare’s two grown daughters all that thrilled to have Daddy back in the bosom of their family.

Judith (Kathryn Wilder) is married to a joyless Puritan physician (Phil Dunster) who regards his father-in-law’s profession as inherently sinful. Desperate to produce a grandson who will inherit Shakespeare’s comfortable estate (her husband may be firing blanks), Judith is having an affair with a local merchant. She may also have contracted a sexually transmitted disease.

Younger daughter Susannah (Lydia Wilson) is unmarried and carries a huge chip on her shoulder. She knows that her father still mourns the death of his only son, 11-year-old Hamnet, 20 years before. She’ll always be an also-ran in his affections.

Apparently Hamnet inherited his father’s writing talent (“wit and mischief in every line”) and Shakespeare, still grief stricken all these years later, decides to honor his dead offspring by creating a garden outside the family home.

The Shakespeare women are resentful of this male-centric obsession. (“It’s not Hamnet you mourn. It’s yourself.”)

Ian McKellan

Meanwhile,  Anne quietly seethes over the “dark lady” of her husband’s sonnets. She’s pretty sure he’s not alluding to their marriage.

Then Shakespeare is visited by his patron and friend the Earl of Southampton (Ian McKellan).  While the rest of the household stands motionless in the front yard, the two men converse by candlelight.  There are indications that at one time they may have been lovers.

In any case, both are lovers of English eloquence; the dialogue here is absolutely luscious, with McKellan and Branagh making the most of every word.

“All Is True” posits that a great writer capable of creating fantastic worlds with words may struggle with the nuts and bolts of daily life. This is hardly an earth-shaking revelation, but we’ve built such carapace of adoration around William Shakespeare that it’s a bit shocking to discover him dealing with the same concerns — both picayune and monumental — that plague us all.

The acting is impeccable. Branagh is particularly good at mining the bafflement of a man widely regarded as a genius but incapable of dealing  with his own family.

Though its scale is intimate, “All Is True” is gorgeous to look at, whether the subject is misty morning landscapes or candlelit interiors.

| Robert W. Butler