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Thursday, September 12, 2019

All Is True (2019)

Kenneth Branagh has brought several of Shakespeare's plays to the silver screen and now he has tackled Shakespeare himself.  I did not recognize the actor by looking at him.  There is a lot of make up involved here, and the film might well be in line for a make up Oscar nomination, so transformed is the actor in order to resemble the character he is playing.  When he opens his mouth, however, we know who is behind it all.
The story is fictional, but revolves around the real history that the famous Globe Theater, where the lion's share of the bard's plays premiered, burned to the ground in June of 1613.  In this account, Shakespeare returns home to the bosom of a family that resents his absence.  Judi Dench is Anne Shakespeare to perfection, and her daughters are a mix that portrays the very real restrictions on women in Renaissance England.  Basically, they were more or less trapped, regardless of the fame and fortune that Shakespeare himself has bestowed upon them.   Sir Ian McKellen plays the Earl of Southampton, who comes to visit Shakespeare while in town on other business. This is the guy to whom the Bard supposedly wrote those famous sonnets, and that scene is pure gold.  The film is entertaining and the costuming and staging are all that you would expect.  Well worth it.

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