Truth be told, but expressed with only the very best intention, All is True is terribly old fashioned. As Shakespearean biographical features go, it is twee, sycophantic and hardly more factual than Roland Emmerich’s ludicrously slanderous 2011 offering Anonymous. And yet, projected through the lush glow of Zac Nicholson’s eternally autumnal cinematography, it is a delightfully tender film. From open to close, in spite of dour and devastating plotting, a viewing feels equitable to the warmest of enveloping embraces.
On paper, Mary Queen of Scots reads like a prestige picture par excellence. Saoirse Ronan leads, theatre stalwart Josie Rourke directs and the creator of Netflix hit House of Cards, Beau Willimon, writes. The reality is a much drier, less engaging and only sporadically compelling affair. Were hair and makeup alone enough to make a triumph, Rourke’s film would be nothing less. On the other hand, in such a world, Redken would be beating Disney at the box office.
It might be film’s biggest night of the year but the Oscars have been mired by controversy, scandal and disorder in 2019. After months of speculation, the Academy has finally announced yesterday that its ninety-first ceremony will have no host for the first time in three decades. But how can that work?
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