Posing as a cinematic promotion of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare's authorship, which contends that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare, Emmerich's ANONYMOUS, chasing a victory of its closest cousin SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE ( 1998), aims high but lands low.
First thing first, ANONYMOUS is a dead-serious business that gives no mirth or whatsoever, as if, as long as everything conceived and fabricated by scribe John Orloff, could be played out in unadulterated dourness, the story would automatically and irrefutably become factual ( an influence of Emmerich's Teutonic extraction?, it is a coproduction with hefty German input). So among a vast ensemble, no smile can be traced save for two, one is from the august Queen Elizabeth I (Redgrave, futilely emulating a success preceded by Judi Dench, with her daughter Joely Richardson playing the sovereign's younger self), when she is entertained by theatrical divertissement, much to the chagrin of her puritanical adviser William Cecil (Thewlis); and the other is the Bard himself (Spall, an acting job might not make his father Timothy proud ),a mercenary laughing stock and murderer, even, whose smirk is so unsavory, the connotation is in evidence, a barely literate low-class thespian he is, must he be a fraud, perforce he is the scum of the earth type everyone should spit in his eye, that snooty air is difficult, if no less unsavory to dispel.
Intricately rounding out this conspiracy theory with a motley of historical personages and events, and playing out the Virgin Queen's notorious pendant of birthing bastards and tall-tale court intrigue, ANONYMOUS is quite a byzantine edifice to appreciate, for those who are not au fait with Great Britain's history (myself is guilty as charged), it takes some patience to get a clear picture of the whole interpersonal entanglement (not assuaged by the time-jumping narrative strategy), or even discern who is who in the dim-lit Elizabethan London .
One saving grace, apart from its sumptuous production design (those velvety tapestries) - the go-to merit of any moneyed period enterprise, on a modest $30 million, the film still ends up as a financial flop, is the performance of Rhys Ifans as the middle-aged Edward, kohl-titivated in finery, poised, pained or straining a stiff upper lip when he faces a horrific reveal, Ifans' well-modulated delivery and comportment comes as the nearest thing to merit Shakespeare's criterion, to which, the rest of the cast, including a slightly perplexed Redgrave, a perpetually agonized Sebastian Armesto, playing poet/playwright Ben Jonson, involvement whose needs a bigger canvas to explicate, and a cardboard cluster of youngsters, Xavier Samuel, as Henry Wirothesley, the Earl of Southampton, Jamie Campbell Bower as the young Edward, Sam Reid as Robert Devereux,2nd Earl of Essex (the commonality of the trio is appalling), cannot hold a candle.
referential entries: John Madden's SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998, 7.8/10); Emmerich's WHITE HOUSE DOWN (2013, 5.5/10).
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