It should strike you as ironic that the film Anonymous asks you to consider the source in regards to who really wrote the works of William Shakespeare, when in fact the most questionable author in the equation is the filmmaker themselves: Roland Emmerich. Here’s a director who has made a name for himself creating one loud, thoughtless film after another, but with Anonymous there’s a notable depletion in his bluster. Or is there? Granted, Anonymous takes a much smaller scope—there are no world ending catastrophes, aliens, or monsters to speak of—and the theory he’s basing his film on isn’t just his own, but ultimately the film should be taken with however big a grain of salt you used to season his last “theoretically true” films like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow. Just like with those disaster films, Emmerich does little more than ask “What if?” and then sets in motion a visually rich but substantially empty film that doesn’t so much answer the question but distract the audience long enough to make them forget if they ever cared. The fact that it’s a decent period drama with solid performances by Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave and David Thewlis does little to fix a shallow conspiracy story awkwardly told through characters initially indistinguishable from one flashback to the next.
Was Shakespeare a fraud? Actual scholars still say no, but the premise of Anonymous portends otherwise, claiming little to no evidence that any of his works were by his own hand and using that newfound uncertainty to spin a theory of the author’s true identity. In the process, Emmerich leads the audience through an Elizabethan London where struggling playwright Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) longs for notoriety among his embittered peers, only to have the chance of a lifetime thrust upon him. After an arrest over a recent production’s seditious nature, Ben becomes the unwitting pawn of the Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans) who seeks to use theatre to rouse the political ambitions of the common folk in his efforts to oust Robert Cecil (Edward Hogg) as the advisor to Queen Elizabeth (Vanessa Redgrave), and in so doing position his heir of choice (Sam Reid) for succession to the throne.
To make this happen, the Earl of Oxford gives Ben a number of his plays and instructs him to stage them under his own name. However, as a man of honor, Ben feels cheap to do so and so when the time for taking credit comes, his associate William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall), an obnoxious drunk of an actor, signs his names to the works and becomes a theatrical sensation. Things quickly heat up and we’re treated to a number of flashbacks revealing exactly why the Earl of Oxford has such bitterness towards Robert Cecil and his father William (Thewlis).
Rhys Ifans continues to shine in whatever role he takes and he never succumbs to the melodramatic pageantry that many actors insist upon when playing a role in the Elizabethan era. Vanessa Redgrave and (her daughter) Joely Richardson, who split the role of Queen Elizabeth between her older and younger years, respectively, also give strong performances that have the proper amount of restraint in the midst of the twisted love affairs of her court. By contrast, Edward Hogg’s portrayal devolves into little more than a sniveling caricature that’s impossible to take seriously or believe capable of the scheming that takes place here. Ifans and Hogg go to polar extremes in their embrasure of their roles, and the dissonance of their approaches makes for some absolutely silly scenes. Thewlis, the elder Cecil, never has the same problem as Hogg in bringing the proper level of puritanical menace to bear; it never gets away from him and helps to keep the earlier dramatic scenes from becoming an accidental comedy.
Where the comedy does seep in, and appropriately, is in the form of Rafe Spall’s Shakespeare who’s at once a silly braggart and a conniving fiend. In Spall’s case, the moments of over-the-top acting make his best moments work, and without it the rivalry between Jonson and Shakespeare, the only two members of their circle who know the truth of Shakespeare’s success, would have been a very dull affair.
The lynchpin of Anonymous is whether or not it can convince the audience of the devious plot surrounding the Shakespearean verses and the men and women who played its parts. Unfortunately, one too many holes in the plot and a laughably silly villain played by Hogg drag the story down from a compelling conspiracy theory into a flaccid but still entertaining tale of intrigue and romance. There’s certainly more to Anonymous than you’re wont to find in most of his films, but what’s that really saying?
In the end, the biggest question raised by Anonymous, is why that title makes any sense whatsoever. I'm pretty sure the word Roland Emmerich was looking for was "Pseudonym".
"Anonymous" opens October 28, 2011 and is rated PG13. Drama. Directed by Roland Emmerich. Written by John Orloff. Starring David Thewlis, Edward Hogg, Jamie Campbell Bower, Joely Richardson, Rhys Ifans, Rafe Spall, Sebastian Armesto, Sam Reid, Vanessa Redgrave.
