The much debated theory that William Shakespeare never penned any of the plays attributed to him has been bandied about in academic circles for centuries, rating as one of the most prevalent conspiracy theories of all time. While there are numerous theories pointing towards many potentially different authors, director Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous positions Edward de Vere, the former Earl of Oxford, as the true writer of some of the greatest stories ever performed.
While the theory is still shocking to some, what remains most shocking to moviegoers and scholars alike is that a director like Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012) would choose to make a period drama with a hefty literary pedigree. Granted, the film does contain some of the director’s greatest calling cards (obviously risible villains, gratuitous action, crude jokes) and any sort of a historically accurate timeline is nowhere to be found, but there is something incredibly fitting about having a big budget disaster movie director taking over a film about The Bard.
All of the calling cards of Emmerich can also be seen as Shakespearian calling cards. Shakespeare, whoever he may be, was a populist playwright, and there is no denying that Emmerich has never once made a film directly to please academics or critics. He makes films for an audience that watches only a handful of movies every year, dabbling in very basic, rabble rousing terms. Shakespeare’s plays were also aimed squarely at the commoner and derided by the aristocracy as being trivial, trite, and dangerous to the establishment. In a strange way, Anonymous comes across as being a deeply personal film regardless of Emmerich and writer John Orloff’s point of view. With this film, Emmerich shows how thankless it is to craft a blockbuster and how impossible it is to assign praise or blame when such an enterprise is shown before an audience.
Rhys Ifans stars as de Vere, a sheltered member of nobility who wished from his youth to be a writer in the face of an unsupportive family holding the Protestant Church’s hard line that plays and poetry were immoral and unbecoming of the upper class. The only supportive ear within the royal family belongs to that of Queen Elizabeth (Vanessa Redgrave), with whom he once had an affair. In an effort to get his plays noticed and performed in secret, he enlists the help of struggling playwright Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto) to put his name on the work. A botched curtain call leads instead to William Shakespeare – here depicted as a drunken sot by Rafe Spall – taking credit for all future works while de Vere continues his output, trying not to be discovered.
Much like most crowd pleasers, the heroes are great, but the villains are even better. Spall plays Shakespeare as if he were the Victorian Russell Brand, and surprisingly enough it works given the tone of the material. David Thewlis (as the hunchbacked chief advisor to Elizabeth) and Trystan Gravelle (as the bitchy and pompous Christopher Marlowe, who is probably the most academically credible suspect to have written Shakespeare’s plays) attack their roles with moustache twirling glee. Ifans and Redgrave are always capable of great performances and they aren’t slouches here, but Anonymous roars to life when the bad guys appear on screen (often accompanied by a ridiculous and unintentionally comedic amount of thunderclaps that one could make a drinking game out of).
Emmerich, who has never been known for subtlety, applies his bombastic approach to a period drama with admittedly mixed results. There doesn’t need to be explosions or fencing battles that take place in hedge mazes, but he at least gets the period detail and production design right. Emmerich revels in the period appropriate grime almost as if he’s in the pit with the groundlings at the Globe Theatre. Unlike his action blockbusters which can feel like they’re on autopilot, Emmerich seems engaged with his material.
It seems unlikely that Emmerich would ever give up his bread and butter career of making things blow up real good, but Anonymous is a pleasant diversion. It’s a little rough around the edges, but that almost adds to its charm. It’s a film about an academic subject that doesn’t want to draw to much attention to the theories it’s suggesting. It wants to entertain the people in the first twenty rows who want to gather up nice and close to the screen.
Rating: 
Rated PG
Cast: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Top image: A scene from Anonymous. Courtesy Sony Pictures.
