Biographical drama in which William Shakespeare retires from his writing career to spend time with his family.
Judi Dench and Ian McKellen offer solid support in a story of Shakespeare’s home life that tiptoes between fact and fiction.
McKellen presents a man whose vanity welcomes being immortalised in verse, but with no intention of reciprocating the actual love; it's a rich, potent, nay Shakespearean performance that highlights what the rest of the film sorely lacks.
A quiet and meditative portrait of the artist as a retiree, this lacks incident or high stakes but has an elegiac feeling of regret and reckoning that fits its subject’s twilight years.
It’s a patiently but compellingly told story and Branagh gives a typically generous performance.
Self-indulgent silliness.
Kenneth Branagh and Ben Elton might have played fast and loose with the truth, but they have created something bold and contemporary.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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