"Family is everything," observes William Shakespeare (played by Kenneth Branagh) after the wedding of his daughter in the film about Shakespeare's All is True (directed by Branagh). The film apparently takes its name from an alternative title for the play Henry VIII, the last play performed at the Globe Theater, the day it burned down in 1613. The film follows Shakespeare from then through his final few years until his death in 1616, years spent back home in Stratford with his wife, Anne Hathaway (Judy Dench), his daughters, and their husbands. How historical all this is, I do not know. He did have two daughters in problematic, if not scandalous marriages, and he had lost his 11-year old only son in 1596. These facts set the stage for the drama of family - and family dysfunction - that unfolds in the film.
True to history or not, All Is True revolves in large part around Shakespeare's unresolved grief for his dead son, his only male heir, whom he had imagined to be talented like him, and his gradual coming to terms with the truth about his son's life and death. It is also a parable about an upwardly mobile genius's preoccupation - to the point of obsession - with his family's legacy, even having purchased for himself a coat of arms. In the process, it offers insight into the complex gender dynamics of early 17th-century English family relationships, as well as the growing conflict caused by the Puritans within the English Church (a division which will matter much more later in the century).
Shakespeare was a poetic and dramatic genius and is recognized as such in the film, which for the most part avoids controversial questions about, for example, the authorship of particular works and (apart form one brief allusion by the Earl of Southampton) Shakespeare's religion. It does acknowledge his apparent love for the Earl (played by Ian McKellen). He was the presumed addressee of his most famous sonnet (Sonnet 29, When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes), a love which could not be completely reciprocated because of the class distinction between them, a boundary which did not, however, prevent the noble Earl from appreciating him as the great man that he was.
Greatness can be a burden. The film highlights the burden his greatness (and having to cater to his greatness) has imposed on his family. But it also highlights the blessing of having a family to come home to, even when one has so little still in common with them.
True to history or not, All Is True revolves in large part around Shakespeare's unresolved grief for his dead son, his only male heir, whom he had imagined to be talented like him, and his gradual coming to terms with the truth about his son's life and death. It is also a parable about an upwardly mobile genius's preoccupation - to the point of obsession - with his family's legacy, even having purchased for himself a coat of arms. In the process, it offers insight into the complex gender dynamics of early 17th-century English family relationships, as well as the growing conflict caused by the Puritans within the English Church (a division which will matter much more later in the century).
Shakespeare was a poetic and dramatic genius and is recognized as such in the film, which for the most part avoids controversial questions about, for example, the authorship of particular works and (apart form one brief allusion by the Earl of Southampton) Shakespeare's religion. It does acknowledge his apparent love for the Earl (played by Ian McKellen). He was the presumed addressee of his most famous sonnet (Sonnet 29, When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes), a love which could not be completely reciprocated because of the class distinction between them, a boundary which did not, however, prevent the noble Earl from appreciating him as the great man that he was.
Greatness can be a burden. The film highlights the burden his greatness (and having to cater to his greatness) has imposed on his family. But it also highlights the blessing of having a family to come home to, even when one has so little still in common with them.
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