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All is True
*
Dir: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen
(UK, 12A, 1hr 41mins)
This hilariously inept retelling of the last days of Shakespeare is full of over written luvvieness, and writer Ben Elton seems to have been saving up bits of research left over from his BBC sitcom Upstart Crow.
Director Kenneth Branagh also plays Shakespeare himself, via some nose prosthetics and a pointier chin. After the Globe theatre burnt down in 1613 during a performance of Shakespeare’s final play Henry VIII, the bard never put pen to paper again. Taking many liberties with the facts, scriptwriter Elton has Shakespeare retiring to Stratford, where he confronts the ghosts of his past, most notably grieving for his son Hamnett, who died when he was 11 while Shakespeare himself was writing the Merry Wives of Windsor. In the mix is Anne Hathaway (a woefully miscast Judi Dench), his long-suffering wife, and two daughters, Judith and Susanna.
It’s turgid stuff, both daughters creating some social disquiet for Shakepeare as he mopes about in his garden rattling off cheesy dialogue. A cameo from Sir Ian McKellen as the Earl of Southampton, to whom some of Shakespeare’s love sonnets may have been addressed, allows an iambic pentameter-off as both Branagh and McKellen recite Sonnet 29, the heavy-handed direction and surrounding dialogue removing any nuance of mystery about their relationship.
It’s a bad film on many levels, but its straight-faced conviction makes it often unintentionally hilarious; a moment where Branagh copies Russell Crowe in Gladiator is laugh out loud funny. This is not the film the Bard deserves, wrestling with grief, trying to make amends with his his family: there is something far more interesting and dynamic to be told here, which the film occasionally hints at before soon disappearing into another cliché. It appears that everyone has said yes before reading the script and struggled on regardless as master wordsmith Shakespeare is reduced to a by-the-numbers sixth-form project. All is not true in this hammy escapade.
words Keiron Self
Out now in cinemas
