"All is (Fairly) True": Into the Archive

 

“All is True” is a 2018 film written by Ben Elton (writer of the comedy series “Upstart Crow” – among other luminous deeds) and starring Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, and Ian McKellen. It is an autumnal movie, dealing with the autumnal years of the life of William Shakespeare, so I have found it very seasonable viewing fare.

The story: after the burning of the Globe Theatre in 1613, Shakespeare gives up the writing of plays and returns home to Stratford, from where he has been more or less absent for twenty years. He finds he must repair not only his relationship with his family, but with his hometown, his old London friends who wonder why he left them, and his memories of a son who died too young.

Much of “All is True” is speculative, of course, a sort of dancing around known facts. There is some dallying with the idea of the “whiff of Popery” about the Shakespeare family as well as a supposed love affair with the Earl of Southhampton, but nothing that can be pinned down if either notion offends you. The title “All is True” (taken from the alternate title for “The History of Henry the VIII”) must, as with any work of biographical art, be taken with a pinch of salt.

The central mystery of the film has nothing to do with any of those sorts of things and won’t be spoiled by me, and there seems little reason (beyond that is intriguing and artistically devised) to believe it is ‘true’. It is magnificently filmed, wonderfully acted, and reaches an emotionally satisfying ending.

The pacing is slow and thoughtful, giving the viewer time to consider the beauty of the setting and each new revelation. It did not do spectacularly at the box office (it was the beginning of our own plague times and did not have as many explosions or sex scenes or super-heroes as might have appealed to a wider audience) so did not get as many watchers as it perhaps deserves. But it is a worthy piece of art that may prove to have very long legs in the future.