Starring: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave and David Thewlis
Directed By: Roland Emmerich
Screenplay By: John Orloff
Produced By: Roland Emmerich, Larry J. Franco, Robert Leger, Christoph Fisser, Marc Weigert, John Orloff, Kirstin Winkler and Volker Engel
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 130 minutes
Website: anonymous-movie.com
Budget: $30 million (estimated)
Genre: Drama
Release Date: October 28, 2011
For centuries, literary scholars have debated the true author of the works attributed to William Shakespeare. Some scholars have gone so far as to suggest Shakespeare never actually existed. Conspiracy theories have only grown more elaborate in recent years, naming everybody from Sir Francis Bacon to Christopher Marlowe to the Queen of England as the true author of Shakespeare’s works.
All of this is completely irrelevant when discussing Anonymous, the new film which uses the mystery surrounding the authorship solely as jumping-off point to tell an elaborate, grandiose and at times laughable tragedy of truly epic proportions. Director Roland Emmerich, famous for big-budget disaster films like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow, reins in his usual love of bombast to tell a more intimate, candle-lit tale of palace intrigue, political maneuvering and royal succession.
Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans), is a tortured genius driven to write instead of attending to the duties of his title. Believing in the power of words over swords, he enlists ambitious young playwright Ben Johnson to publish de Vere’s work as his own, in the hopes of influencing the draconian politics of Elizabethan England. But after staging a wildly successful adaptation of one of deVere’s anonymously-penned plays, actor William Shakespeare takes credit for the work, despite never actually having learned to write. Acting as middleman between the two eccentric artists, Johnson watches with envy as Shakespeare’s celebrity grows and de Vere’s plays begin to incite uprising among the commoners.
If this were the entirety of the film, Anonymous would be a short and enjoyable alternate reality that effectively combined comedy and drama. But in an conscious effort to avoid comparisons to Shakespeare in Love, writer John Orloff has added more characters and plot lines than his meager conceit can support. A present-day framing sequence establishes the film as a play brought to life, but is completely ignored until the movie’s end. The bloated narrative is further confused by flawed structuring that piles flashbacks upon flashbacks to show de Vere’s very long and progressively creepier history with Queen Elizabeth I (played by Joely Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave).
With an endless barrage of characters, timelines, titles and heredity packed into the film’s first hour, it is all too easy for audiences to lose track of who they are watching or why they should care. But once the major players are established and the flashbacks become less frequent, the film finds its footing, relying on its strong ensemble cast to elevate material that could easily descend into camp.
With his raccoon-like eyeliner and constant preening, Rhys Ifans’s Earl of Oxford begins the film more “Raspberry Beret” Prince than actual royalty, but he regulates his performance as the character ages and things start getting serious. Richardson and Redgrave both do an admirable job infusing their Queen with humanity, passion and self-awareness, and Edward Hogg shines as a menacing, humpbacked villain. But the real star of the film is Rafe Spall, who plays his Shakespeare as a boozy, carefree hedonist capable of true menace.
Emmerich puts his technical wizardry to good use, creating stunning establishing shots of Elizabethan England, and the film’s few action sequences are well-staged and warranted. By avoiding his usual technical tricks, he has forced himself into a more classical style that, for the most part, avoids feeling rote. What Anonymous lacks in historical accuracy, it makes up for in entertaining performances that are only sabotaged by the film’s convoluted story and structure. If only it could have found a better writer.
3 Stars (out of 5)
