Movie: Anonymous
Directed by Roland Emmerich.
Starring Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, Sebastion Armesto,Jamie Cambell Bower
First of all, I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that says that I will NOT be basing this review on the movie's historical accuracy. No, the movie is not accurate. No, it does not present convincing evidence that Edward De Vere wrote the plays of Shakespeare. I feel this is irrelevant. If you are very protective of Shakespeare, than this fact might be just enough to prevent you from enjoying it. But I am not writing that sort of review.
Onwards!
The plot is misleadingly simple - At the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, there is a intense struggle about who will succeed the childless ruler. King James, son of Mary Queen of Scots (otherwise known as Bloody Mary) is the preferred candidate by the Cecil family whom are employed as Elizabeth's advisers. Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford and a young ward of the royal house, is pushing for the Earl of Essex to succeed Elizabeth because it is common knowledge (in the film) that Essex is actually Elizabeth's son. De Vere decides that the best way to convince Elizabeth that the choice of the puritanical Cecil family is not the right one is by reminding her of her youth and her love for plays - a sinful thing, in the Cecil's eyes. "Words will prevail with Elizabeth", he says. The only problem is that an Earl cannot write plays and so De Vere asks Ben Johnson to stage his work for him. Johnson has a moment of ethics and hesitates when it is time to bow to the applause of the first widely accepted performance, and an illiterate actor name William Shakespeare grabs his moment. Thus, history is made (in this movie). What follows is the more of the political maneuvering that many may not be expecting in a movie that presents itself as just being about Shakespeare.
Overall, the plot is purposefully over-dramatic. The movie itself is presented as a play and, in keeping with the tragic turns of Shakespeare himself, it is rife with miscommunication, shocking reveals (maybe one or two a little TOO shocking), and lost dreams.
The directing is both one of the movie's strengths and one of its weaknesses. Emmerich - surprisingly -manages to create a rich atmosphere in individual scenes and really gets the best from the the actors. The level of detail is wonderful and Emmerich does especially well in the theater scenes (harkening back to the play-within-a-play favorite of Shakespeare) by showing how up close and personal the groundlings were to the action on the stage of the Globe and what the theater experience would have been for Elizabethans
Emmerich's cinematography is absolutely breathtaking and it is even more admirable to know that they actually filmed most of this movie in front of greenscreen in Germany. The old England of 'Anonymous' is stylish and downright gorgeous.
