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Ben Elton

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The Beautiful Game

(0 Ratings) Rate It

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The Beautiful Game is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton about a group of teenagers...

We Will Rock You

7.8 (5 Ratings) Rate It

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We Will Rock You is a jukebox musical based on the songs of British rock band Queen with a book by...

All Is True (2018)

6.3 (7 Ratings) Rate It

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A look at the final days in the life of renowned playwright William Shakespeare.

Awix (3310 KP) rated All Is True (2018) in Movies

Feb 14, 2019

All Is True (2018)

2018 | Biography, Drama, History

6.3

(7 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Shakespeare bio-pic just about scrapes a 6 despite all the talent involved. William Shakespeare retires to the country, does some gardening, worries about the position of his family, dies (come on, that's not really a spoiler). Main problem is that, as a thing about Shakespeare written by Ben Elton, it seems terrified of being confused with that other thing about Shakespeare written by Ben Elton (the sitcom), and the result is a slow, earnest film with long, static takes and not much in the way of incident.

Like most fiction actually about Shakespeare, it focuses on the one incident in his life with any kind of dramatic potential, namely the death of his son, but the details surrounding this are embroidered to the point where it's arguably taking liberties with the truth. The fact remains that Shakespeare's plays are much more interesting stories than his life was. Decent performances from all concerned, but some of the actors are honestly much too old for the parts they've been cast in (Ian McKellen's character was nearly ten years younger than Shakespeare, not twenty years older).