There are so many mysteries in history, things we'll never know for sure. For instance, everything about Shakespeare is slightly mysterious. This movie focus on his last years and it is based on the very few written documents regarding Shakespeare's family and affairs. This script, based on those few, arid legal documents is pure speculation, but loving speculation from someone who admires Shakespeare a good deal.
We can travel back in time and watch what could have been the final part of Shakespeare's life, back home. Played by Kenneth himself, Will is a slightly disappointed man, who at first does not find much comfort in his family. His wife Anne is resentful, his spinster daughter Judith even more so. Married daughter Susanna is also unhappy, but most of all Will is grieving for the loss of his only son, Hamnet. Allegedly struck down at 11 by the plague over 10 years earlier, Hamnet used to send poems to his father.
Will believes his son to have had a great literary talent and that makes him ever more disconsolate by his premature departure. Judith, being Hamnet's twin sister thinks her father would have preferred her to die and she's obviously hurt. However, there is a secret waiting to be told, which will contribute to give Will the closure he so much needs.
A word about the actors: Branagh is excellent as Shakespeare, definitely not recognizable as himself, but Judi Dench, playing wife Anne is too old for the part. As mentioned by many, Anne was only a few years older than William, but in this movie she could be his mother. Beautifully shot in the English countryside, the movie has an artistic quality to it, an atmospheric melancholic feeling that will be appreciate by many, but definitely not a movie for the masses.
