Kenneth Branagh, the great Shakespearean actor-director of the late 20th and early 21st Century now comes full-circle in playing 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.
The film takes its title from All Is True, the original title of Shakespeare's play about Henry VIII.
Tropes
- Actually Pretty Funny: Judith thinks it's hilarious that the daughter of the greatest playwright is married to a Puritan who hates art.
- Arc Words: "You must write again."
- Artistic License – History: Lampshaded by Will himself.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: 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.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Susanna learned to read, but Judith did not due to her impatient personality.
- Broken Ace: 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.Southampton: Why do you care? [...] You wrote King Lear!
- Creator Career Self-Deprecation: 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."
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Shakespeare justifies himself for his estrangement by saying that he's made his family wealthy and that they had three wonderful children.
- Heir Club for Men: Shakespeare has a granddaughter, but badly wants a grandson.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: 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.
- Loving a Shadow: Shakespeare especially mourns Hamnet's death because it seemed like his son was also a talented writer. It turns out Judith, not he, was writing all those poems, and Hamnet may have been Driven to Suicide 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.
- Malicious Slander: Susanna is accused of adultery because she purchased mercurynote 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.
- Meaningful Echo: Within the same scene. During their conversation, Shakespeare declaims Sonnet 29 to the Earl of Southampton in a thinly-veiled Anguished Declaration of Love (essentially settling his being Ambiguously Bi). While Southampton seems aghast or 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 both of them can't do anything about it anymore).
- Mythology Gag:
- "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.
- Ben Johnson is mentioned as giving Shakespeare grief for not reading Greek and giving Bavaria a coast.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: 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."
- Outliving One's Offspring: Hamnet's death hangs heavy over the whole first part of the film.
- Rapid-Fire Interrupting: 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).
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: 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.
- Scary Black Man: 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 Titus Andronicus. This amuses his family, who knew the actor personally and recalled him as a kind, gentle person.
- Shakespeare in Fiction: Focusing on his retirement and family life at the conclusion of his career.
- Spotting the Thread: 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.
- Survivor's Guilt: Judith has a mixture of this and perception that she is The Unfavorite and that Shakespeare would have preferred she died to Hamnet.
- Title Drop: When the aspiring playwright asks for real writing advice, Shakespeare tells him to use everything he has in his life and in his heart to fuel his writing—and when he does, putting everything himself into the work, then whatever he writes, "all is true."
