Anonymous

Anonymous (2011) is a truly wretched film. It's bad history, which might be forgivable if it weren't a really, really bad movie as well. Thar be spoilers in this review, but I feel ruining certain twists something akin to a public service.

Turn-of-the-17th Century Tudor England is a hotbed of intrigue. Elizabeth I (Vanessa Redgrave) nears her deathbed, and her minister Robert Cecil (Edward Hogg) schemes to put Scotland's James VI on the English throne. Unfortunately for Cecil, Elizabeth has several bastards, including Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex (Sebastian Reid), with a more direct claim. Through this we're introduced to Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans), who as a young man (Jamie Campbell Bower) romanced Elizabeth (Joely Richardson) and impregnated her. De Vere is also a brilliant playwright, but afraid to publish his own work, he delegates credit to actor Will Shakespeare (Rafe Spall). The two strands intersect when De Vere pens a subversive play (Richard III) that helps inspire the Essex Rebellion, where Essex and his followers attempt to assert their "rightful" claim on the throne.

I don't give the Oxford theory of Shakespeare authorship any credence, since it's based on snobbery (no way a country boy like Shakespeare wrote such great plays) and dot-connecting (hey, Oxford spent time in Italy, ergo he's Shakespeare!) of a JFK conspiracy/9/11 Truther sort rather than actual evidence. That certainly doesn't mean the topic lacks dramatic potential, but it deserves a better shake than Anonymous. I wouldn't worry about the film's possible impact, because it's so outlandish that it discredits itself.

Anonymous is utterly laughable. John Orloff's terrible script juggles lurid melodrama with obtuse characterization, adding a pointless flashback structure on top. The movie strains credulity in too many ways to count; a hilarious scene shows Oxford with Shakespeare's complete works lying around in his office! Characters come and go without explanation: Christopher Marlowe (Trystan Gravelle) only gets a post-mortem identification, and Oxford's mistress isn't even afforded that. Emmerich drags in the Essex Rebellion to muddle things further, but bafflingly makes the Earl a bit player in his own plot. This is Bad Screenwriting 101, folks.

Anonymous will surely drive history buffs into an apopleptic rage. It dredges up the hoary Prince Tudor theory, that Elizabeth pupped out numerous bastards and somehow kept this a secret. But that's mere sensationalism worthy of The Tudors. Emmerich also (major spoiler) posits that Elizabeth slept with her own son and had a child by him. This grotesque distortion requires so much suspension of disbelief that one might as well argue Shakespeare was a Reptilian space alien.

Unfortunately, Anonymous isn't content with being speculative fiction but purports to be a shocking secret history. Emmerich has given several interviews defending the film's premise and amusingly called out historians for criticising him. Unlike Shakespeare in Love, which puts dramatic license at the service of a comedy, Anonymous is in deadly earnest with its nonsense. Fortunately, the movie's disastrous box office take deflated Emmerich's Oliver Stone pretensions.

Emmerich helms a handsome production. The movie certainly looks good in spots, with a mixture of impeccable sets, costumes and well-incorporated CGI. A few set pieces, including several spirited stagings of Shakespeare and Essex's abortive uprising, are competently handled. Then again, a corpse still decomposes no matter how many flowers you place on it.

Surprisingly, Rafe Spall's goofball Shakespeare is the least offensive performance. Rhys Ifans is a boring brooder without a flicker of emotion. Vanessa Redgrave (previously Anne Boleyn and Mary Stuart in other Tudor flicks) seems an ideal Elizabeth but has nothing to work with. Joely Richardson's (The Patriot) awful performance is nothing so much as a bad Cate Blanchett impersonation. David Thewlis and Edward Hogg play the Cecils as one-note turds. Derek Jacobi (Day of the Jackal) disgraces himself with a brief cameo.

Anonymous is a tragic waste of time. Even disregarding its myriad inaccuracies and promotion of specious nonsense, it's just plain trash - a bad film on any level, literary, cinematic or historical.

P.S.: On the off-chance you're inclined to take the film seriously, this site provides a comprehensive debunking of the "controversy." Ron Rosenbaum's Slate piece addresses it more succinctly.