'All Is True': 3 Great Actors Bring Shakespeare to Life

Then a blast of fresh air enters the film: Shakespeare's former patron — and, some say, long-ago lover — the Earl of Southampton (Ian McKellen, 79) pays him a visit. In what is almost a play within a play, they talk about loss and desire, youth and old age in the fading glow of the fireplace embers. The earl chides Shakespeare for his bourgeois longings: “Your talents have greater scope than all the other poets combined, and yet you've lived the smallest life.” Their conversation culminates with each reciting Shakespeare's Sonnet 29: Shakespeare reads the poem as a cry for intimacy with his old friend, but the earl rebukes the low-born poet's presumption. What a brave, interesting choice for Branagh, to direct a second great actor riffing on his interpretation of those immortal lines.

But it is also in this verbal duel that we feel a strange distance from Branagh the actor, his face made somewhat rigid and immobile by prosthetics. Ordinarily, this is a man whose expression can change from light to dark without delivering a line of dialogue, but here his affect appears strangely flat. It is only in his eyes that we can see the instincts of a great actor at work.

Yet we have some beautiful moments: With sweet spontaneity, Branagh recites from A Midsummer Night's Dream; then, in an inspired, improvised scene, turns to Dench and asks her to go on. Dench's face lights up, and she continues the verses confidently on to the end. We see not just a marriage on the screen, but the trust and chemistry that can be found in a pas de deux between two superb actors.

As a director, Branagh gives us a meditative look at complex material, dressed up with painterly landscapes, lush costumes and glimpses into a genius’ inner turmoil. In the end, All Is True is worthy but uneven: great moments among long stretches of exposition, but lifted to the heights by performances of three of the best actors working today.