Line #12 Film/AllIsTrue


1	Creator/KennethBranagh, the great Shakespearean actor-director of the late 20th and early 21st Century, now comes full-circle in playing [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare the Bard himself]] in this film. In true Shakespearean tradition it's a dramatic interpretation of Shakespeare's last years with the dramatic license fittingly lampshaded by Shakespeare in the film. The story focuses on Shakespeare returning to Stratford after the fire that consumed the Globe Theatre. His family are estranged for him and he is also forced to at last confront the death of his son Hamnet.
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3	The film takes its title from ''Theatre/AllIsTrue'', the original title of Shakespeare's play about UsefulNotes/HenryVIII.
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5	!!Tropes
6	* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Judith thinks it's hilarious that the daughter of the greatest playwright is married to a Puritan who hates art.
7	* ArcWords: "You must write again."
8	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: {{Lampshaded}} by Will himself.
9	* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Anne and Will are not on the best of terms and she is aware of his flirtations with the "Dark Lady" and "Fair Youth", but she eventually welcomes him back to their bedchamber.
10	* BrilliantButLazy: Susanna learned to read, but Judith did not due to her impatient personality.
11	* BrokenAce: Shakespeare is a renowned playwright returning home rich, armigerous, and an unqualified success. But his relationship with his family is awkward and fractious due to his long absence, he still thinks he needs to live down his late father's misdeeds, and he's still not over bad reviews of his plays.
12	--> '''Southampton:''' Why do you ''care?'' [...] You wrote ''Theatre/KingLear''!
13	* CreatorCareerSelfDeprecation: The Earl of Southampton, played by Sir Ian [=McKellan=], complains to Shakespeare, played by Sir Kenneth Branagh, that "they'll give anyone a knighthood these days."
14	* DudeWheresMyRespect: Shakespeare [[IDidWhatIHadToDo justifies himself]] for his estrangement by saying that he's made his family wealthy and that they had three wonderful children.
15	* HeirClubForMen: Shakespeare has a granddaughter, but badly wants a grandson.
16	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: John Hall is portrayed (at least partially inaccurately) as a stiff Puritan who doesn’t get along well with the rest of the family, but he shows grief and concern for Margaret Wheeler and her unborn child when they die during labor.
17	* LovingAShadow: Shakespeare especially mourns Hamnet's death because it seemed like his son was also a talented writer. [[spoiler: It turns out Judith, not he, was writing all those poems, and Hamnet may have been DrivenToSuicide by the idea his father would find out. Learning this is able to help Shakespeare accept a more-honest memory of his son, and to mourn and bond with his living family.]]
18	* MaliciousSlander: Susanna is accused of adultery because she purchased mercury[[note]]then a treatment for syphilis[[/note]] and used her own name for the order rather than that of her doctor husband, and the local tailor has a crush on her. It's dropped when her accuser fails to turn up in court, having been frightened away by Shakespeare's fiction of a terrifying former lover.
19	* MeaningfulEcho: Within the same scene. During their conversation, Shakespeare declaims Sonnet 29 to the Earl of Southampton in a thinly-veiled AnguishedDeclarationOfLove (essentially settling his being AmbiguouslyBi). While Southampton [[IgnoredEnamoredUnderling seems aghast]] or [[AbhorrentAdmirer perturbed enough]] to leave for it, he eventually turns and recites it himself, but warmer (essentially admitting he did return Shakespeare's feelings even if [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy both of them can't do anything about it anymore]]).
20	* MythologyGag:
21	** "The Second Best Bed" is not only referenced but a plot point for Anne and Will's relationship. Will's decision to reference it in his will is now a heartwarming gesture of love.
22	** Ben Johnson is mentioned as giving Shakespeare grief for not reading Greek and giving Bavaria a coast.
23	* ObnoxiousInLaws: Shakespeare is not fond of his self-righteous Puritan son-in-law, John Hall. When Anne points out that Hall thinks they're friends, Shakespeare says "I'm a good actor."
24	* OutlivingOnesOffspring: Hamnet's death hangs heavy over the whole first part of the film.
25	* PainfulConfession: One night, William Shakespeare is sitting by the fire with his wife Anne Hathaway and his daughter Edith, when Edith, feeling guilty, reveals to her father that his [[DeathOfAChild young son Hamnet]], who he'd thought to have died of plague, DidNotDieThatWay: when they were both children, before Will returned home to Stratford-Upon-Avon, Edith, feeling [[TheResenter bitter about]] their father seemingly [[ParentalFavoritism preferring Hamnet to her and Susanna]], threatened to tell Will that ''she'' was the one who composed beautiful poetry to him, instead of Hamnet, who merely wrote the poems down for his sister. Overly distraught at the idea of his older sister depriving him of [[WellDoneSonGuy his father's approval]], Hamnet went missing that night, and the next morning, they found him in a pond, with copies of his poems floating beside him. Since Hamnet [[OutOfCharacterIsSeriousBusiness normally]] avoided that pond, Anne and Judith think he must have [[DrivenToSuicide drowned himself]]. Because of society's [[SuicideIsShameful condemning attitude towards suicide]], the Shakespeare women made a cover story about Hamnet having died in a fictitious plague outbreak to make sure Will's son would be given a Christian burial. In contrast to her stoic mother, Judith is openly crying by the time she finishes the tale, clearly feeling as though [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone she drove her brother to kill himself]], and that admitting this would ruin the [[LovingAShadow idealized image of Hamnet]] Will had created. Despite being shocked by the revelation, Will does not hold Hamnet's death against his sister, and ultimately finally comes to terms with his son's death, and accepts a more [[WartsAndAll honest]] memory of him.
26	* RapidFireInterrupting: When an admirer shows up on Shakespeare's doorstep while Shakespeare is fixing a fence, he preemptively answers all the common questions, including but not limited to what his favorite play is (he doesn't have one) and whether or not he thinks women should be allowed to perform on the stage, as is done on the continent (he does).
27	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Sir Thomas Lucy sneers at Shakespeare for being the son of a glover, having a philandering son-in-law, and still being an untitled little man from a little town. Shakespeare takes a moment to digest this and then hits back by detailing each and every thing he's had to coordinate as an actor, director, and theater manager, going through every step of writing a play, organizing an acting troupe, getting people into the theater, and navigating the politics of performing for powerful and touchy patrons, and doing so over and over for ''twenty years''... which is a damn sight more impressive than having a title, which only requires being born to people who already had one.
28	* ScaryBlackMan: While getting Susanna's accuser off her back, Shakespeare tells him that she has an old flame who's still in love with her: the huge black man who played Aaron in ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus''. This amuses his family, who knew the actor personally and recalled him as [[FaceOfAThug a kind,]] [[MeanCharacterNiceActor gentle person]].
29	* ShakespeareInFiction: Focusing on his retirement and family life at the conclusion of his career.
30	* SpottingTheThread: Shakespeare has no reason to disbelieve that Hamnet died of plague until he goes to sign the funeral register as a gesture of closure and sees that his son was the ''only'' recorded death that year. Shakespeare knows from having been in London during plague years that the disease is "a scythe, not a dagger" and confronts Anne and Judith about the lie.
31	* SurvivorsGuilt: Judith has a mixture of this and perception that she is TheUnfavorite and that Shakespeare would have preferred she died to Hamnet.

Context Film / AllIsTrue