Twenty years ago, audiences devoured (the non-Branagh-made) “Shakespeare in Love,” which fancifully imagined the genius behind some of literature’s most memorably knotty romances starring in his own. Branagh’s affectionate if labored wade into this realm, written by Ben Elton, is essentially “Shakespeare in Retirement,” offering a scenario in which greatness comes to terms with legacy, responsibility and a long-ago family tragedy — the death 17 years prior of the playwright’s 11-year-old son, Hamnet, who Will believed showed promise as a poet.
Source: latimes.com – Los Angeles Times