All Is True is a historical and biographical drama which premiered in the US in December 2018 and in the UK in February 2019.
The topic of this drama is the final days in the life of the famous English playwright William Shakespeare.
Here is some basic information about this drama:
** Producer and director: Kenneth Branagh
** Writer: Ben Elton
** Available on DVD and via Amazon Prime Video
** Run time: ca 100 minutes
The cast includes the following:
** Kenneth Branagh as William Shakespeare (1564-1616) – poet and playwright
** Judi Dench as Anne Shakespeare (1536-1623) – William’s wife
** Lydia Wilson as Susanna Shakespeare (1583-1649) – the older daughter
** Kathryn Wilder as Judith Shakespeare (1585-1662) – the younger daughter
** Hadley Fraser as John Hall (1575-1635) – Susanna’s husband
** Jack Colgrave Hirst as Tom Quiney (1589-1662 or 1663) – Judith’s husband
** Ian McKellen as the Earl of Southampton (1573-1624)
Since this drama is based on a true story, the basic facts are part of the public record. They are not a secret. I could mention some of them in this review. But I am not going to do that. I do not wish to spoil the viewing for anyone.
While this drama is based on a true story, it is not a documentary film. It is a dramatized version of events. Not everything happened exactly as shown here. But the basic story is true.
The time frame is 1613-1616. William Shakespeare returns to his home town Stratford-upon-Avon where he spends the final days of his life with members of his family: his wife and his two daughters.
The title of the drama is All Is True. But the title is not a claim about what you will see in the drama. If you watch the drama, you will understand why this title was chosen.
The movie-makers do not claim that everything in this drama is true. In fact, the elements of the drama can be divided into four categories:
# 1. True
# 2. Likely
# 3. Unlikely
# 3. Not true at all
For details and discussion about these four categories, see the following article which is available online:
Emily Rome,
“Fact-checking 13 plot points in All Is True,”
Mental Floss,
24 May 2019
What do reviewers say about this drama? Here are the results of three review aggregators:
59 percent = Meta
63 percent = IMDb
66 percent = Rotten tomatoes (the audience)
72 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)
On Amazon UK there are at the moment more than 800 ratings of this product, more than 250 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.1 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 82 percent.
As you can see, the ratings are good, but not great. They span from 59 percent (Meta) to 82 percent (Amazon).
If you ask me, all these ratings are too low. I think this drama is being underrated. Why do I say this?
I have three reasons:
# 1. The cinematography is excellent.
# 2. The actors play their roles well.
# 3. While the story is slow, as several reviewers point out, this is only as it should be, because this is not an action movie. The slow pace fits the topic of the drama very well.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent)
PS. Nothing is Truer than Truth is a documentary film which premiered in 2018.
The topic is the so-called Oxford Theory. According to this theory, the real author of Shakespeare’s plays and poems is Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, who lived 1550-1604.
For more information about the Oxford Theory, see the following item:
Lee Jamieson, “Comparing the Work of Edward de Vere and William Shakespeare,”
ThoughtCo, 28 January 2019
The question of who actually wrote the Shakespeare plays is the topic of the following items:
** Anonymous - a historical drama (2011)
** Last Will & Testament - a documentary (2012)
** Shakespeare: The Truth Behind the Name - a documentary (2021)
*****
All Is True
A historical drama
(2018 = in the US)
(2019 = in the UK)
*****
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