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Anonymous
Review by Anthony Morris
When it comes to conspiracies, who "really" wrote Shakespeare's plays isn't exactly the most compelling.
Shakepeare's
kids aren't still raking in cash in royalities; changing the author's
name on the title page isn't going to alter a word of the plays
themselves. Which is why you'd hope that a two hour film that
sets out to explain exactly how and why someone who wasn't named
Shakespeare wrote MacBeth, Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caesar,
and so on, would actually come up with a compelling story to make up
for the relative pointlessness of the "shocking" conspiracy at its
heart.
But not Anonymous. No,
the story here is a long-winded muddle involving much scheming at the
court of Queen Elizabeth the first – who, it turns out, was not the
virgin queen of history but something of a royal baby machine who
seemingly spent half her reign out in the country secretly birthing
bastards – and various attempts to gain the support of the
theatre-loving mob by putting on plays designed to whip them into a
frenzy. One problem is that the Shakespeare schemers - with
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans) as the one churning
out the plays - are trying to ensure that King James of Scotland
doesn’t replace Queen Elizabeth. Ever heard of the King James Bible? Yeah, guess their scheming doesn’t quite work out. Still,
perhaps the various subterfuges and rivalries between the playwrights
of the time (including the actual Shakespeare, who here is an
illiterate actor) could've made this worthwhile, except for the fact
that no-one but de Vere seems to write a play and all the real
playwrights do is sulk around looking annoyed as de Vere / Shakespeare
churning out hit after hit. This near-complete lack of story
is confounded by the snobbery of the conspiracy itself, which basically
says that only a high-blown Lord (and lover of the Queen) could
possibly have written such classic plays, as the regular writers of the
time were all kind of crap and not at all regal. Still, the
royals of the time are incestuous perverts and their servants are
sinister hunchbacks, so it seems no-one’s a winner. Least of all anyone who goes to see this tripe. DVD Special Features
Conclusion:
Movie 20% Extras: 50%
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