Movie Review - Anonymous

Anonymous (2011)

Starring Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, Sebastian Arnesto, Rafe Spall, David Thewlis, Edward Hogg, Jamie Campbell Bower, and Derek Jacobi

Directed by Roland Emmerich

I am by no means a Shakespeare connoisseur, but I do have a certain fondness for the Bard.  My final English class in college was a seminar on Shakespeare, his history plays, and how history has regarded him the centuries have passed.  We also briefly touched upon the notion that there is an underlying movement in England (and around the world) to prove that William Shakespeare did not, in fact, pen the plays that he is so well known for writing.  This subculture is explored in Roland Emmerich's Anonymous which twists history around and attempts to show how it could very well have been possible for Shakespeare to have just been a front for another man's work.

That other man in Anonymous is Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (played rather well and almost unrecognizably against type by Rhys Ifans whom I particularly know for his comedic work).  Although it seems rather laughable, de Vere is forced to write in secret, having grown up in a puritanical home and forced to marry the daughter of one of Queen Elizabeth's most trusted advisors.  Desiring to see his plays presented on the stage, de Vere first presents them anonymously, but then discovers that the public needs a face to put behind the page.  He initially attempts to woo aspiring writer Ben Johnson (Sebastian Arnesto), but through the stroke of fate, an actor named William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall) takes credit and begins to pretend to be the writer of the fantastic canon of literature.

Had the movie solely focused on this aspect, I can't help but think I would have enjoyed the proceedings much more.  However, the crux of the movie lies not in this trickery being put upon the British public by de Vere and Shakespeare, but instead fixates on the political intrigue behind the succession of Queen Elizabeth I (Vanessa Redgrave as the elder Queen and Joely Richardson in flashbacks).  Admittedly, I zoned out multiple times so I can't even give a good description of what was happening except to say that de Vere's "adopted" father is involved in much of the "intrigue"...but I couldn't have cared less.

Clocking in at 130 minutes, Anonymous overstays its welcome by a good 45 minutes and had it dropped the mind-numbingly boring succession plot, it may have been a solid picture.  Performances are okay, but everyone lacks emotion and punch making the whole affair so solemn and austere that a coldness exudes throughout.  Roland Emmerich crafted a solid-looking film (apparently much of the sets were completed utilizing CGI technology which certainly fooled me), but a movie that lacks any type of emotional connection to anything it tries to present.

The RyMickey Rating:  D