This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 4, 2011 - "Anonymous" is a curious movie in a number of ways. First, for trying to make sense of the controversy over the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, the movie runs the deadly risk of being far too serious for some viewers and merely ridiculous for others. Second, probably because of that risk, the movie is occasionally both coy and overstated. Third, it's not too bad.
If you like English costume dramas, you'll find all the usual Elizabethan regalia, palace intrigues, caparisoned war horses, and snappy British dialogue. And even if you don't care who Shakespeare "really" was, this story makes as much sense as, say, "Shakespeare in Love" (1998), which won about 93 Academy Awards for being really, really charming.
The best feature of the movie is the soulful portrayal of the Earl of Oxford by Rhys Ifans, the actor who stole the show in the 1999 "Notting Hill," nearly blowing Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant off the screen in his turn as Spike the crazy roommate. Rhys Ifans (pronounced Reese Ee-vans) is a Welsh actor, not much known in the U.S., who has worked in about 15 movies since "Notting Hill." Usually playing someone tall and silly, he is exceptional here as the moody, set-upon writer working from the shadows.
"Anonymous" is basically about the dashing, self-destructive Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and how he secretly wrote the plays of "Shakespeare" because of courtier infighting and politically classified information. That concept fits one of the prevalent theories about the most likely candidate for "Shakespeare," if William Shakespeare himself was only a front.
The ongoing argument over who wrote "Shakespeare" has never been a raging controversy, more like a smoldering spot of trouble that occasionally flares up. Still, scholars can get apoplectic over the issue. Claiming a secret identity for the real Shakespeare has never been respectable.
Meanwhile, a website has been collecting proponents, usually famous actors, scholars and writers (now about 1,200 of them), who question the authorship of Shakespeare's works. The growing list includes Shakespeareans Derek Jacobi and Kenneth Branagh. And before them, a surprising number of writers and actors have gone on record, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, Orson Welles and Sir John Gielgud, all questioning Shakespeare's identity,
Unfortunately, the debate has sometimes been a little crazy, notably when one writer attended a seance and talked directly to the spirits of Shakespeare, Bacon, Vere et al and learned that a whole assembly line of them wrote Shakespeare's plays.
Being a Hollywood production, the movie makes some predictable, questionable choices. Wouldn't "Pseudonymous" be a more accurate title? Or maybe "The Shakespeare Conspiracy"? Of course, "Nom de Guerre" would be asking too much. Just imagine the nasty comments of Hollywood producers about such suggestions.
I should also mention the odd framing story that opens and closes the movie, apparently to provide some kind of "serious theater" vibe, but which is just a strange intrusion.
We do, of course, get to see government conspiracies, some murderous swordplay, a little lusty sex, creepy family feuds and half-unraveled secrets that cannot bear much open study. Isn't that what Hollywood does? Director Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day," "The Patriot") provides the same kind of over-the-top deviltries that Shakespeare himself built into "Richard III," making and partly making up a docudrama that seems plausible in many respects, except for an ohmygod villainous speech right at the end.
If you've ever wondered, as I have, how anyone could have brought such insight and emotional power to stories ranging from "Romeo and Juliet" to "Taming of the Shrew" to "Hamlet," try this movie. The wild and wooly background of Edward Vere matches up well enough to Shakespeare's plays to suggest some motivations.
Does the story scrupulously follow all known historical facts? Oh, please. Hollywood and Roland Emmerich? But it does put human faces onto a what-if mystery nearly too complex to follow in print alone.
Of course, so little is known of Shakespeare's life that every theory, including the standard Stratford-author one, is basically supposition. And the claims for the authorship of Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, as "Shakespeare" are mostly circumstantial, although as Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
If you are interested in the issue, this movie is a place to start. If you stay interested, you might try journalist Joseph Sobran's book, "Alias Shakespeare" (1997). If you'd prefer a fictional mystery-novel approach, try Sarah Smith's "Chasing Shakespeares" (2003).
Just remember that history even now is no exact science. Anybody know for sure who killed John Kennedy? And we have on-the-scene footage of that event! Even so, the "alternative history" of Shakespeare is only a joke to many. As I once heard a comedian say, "If Shakespeare didn't write all those plays, he missed the opportunity of a lifetime."
Nick Otten is a freelance writer who has covered movies, books and other topics for the Beacon.