If Shakespeare were alive today, he would be tearing out his hair in tufts while simultaneously stomping the ground like a child having a tantrum over the cookie withheld from him if he witnessed the sheer offense that is the movie Anonymous. On that same note, so would Queen Elizabeth and basically everyone else who was a character in this painful film. Hard to follow, drawn out and longer than it ever needed to be, this movie slaps history in the face and does not even feel the slightest bit of remorse.
First of all, whether you believe that Shakespeare's hand or that of another wrote his famous works, it seems just wrong and disrespectful to portray him as a drunkard constantly in the company of hookers. So many historical inaccuracies should be illegal, like that Queen Elizabeth had a random affair with the Earl of Oxford, the alleged "real" author of all of Shakespeare's plays; an affair for which there is not even a shred of evidence. Apparently, writer John Orloff is well aware of these discrepencies, and included them intentionally to pay homage to "the way that Shakespeare took liberties with historical facts in his plays". That seems like a bit of a stretch...
Anyways, the plot is basically a twist of how the Earl of Oxford, Edward De Vere, wrote so many marvelous plays and then needed a face to cover for him lest he face persecution for being involved in the forbidden world of theater. This plotline is laced with flashbacks to him as a young man (played by a rather dreadful actor- no offense to him really, maybe it was just the dialogue that could not be helped? I'm not sure...) getting it on with Queen Elizabeth despite the fact that he is already married. There is no prologue or any sort of clear explanation as to who is who in the begininng, so it actually got to the point where my friend and I had to look up the characters on the internet as we watched. Not a good sign.
First of all, whether you believe that Shakespeare's hand or that of another wrote his famous works, it seems just wrong and disrespectful to portray him as a drunkard constantly in the company of hookers. So many historical inaccuracies should be illegal, like that Queen Elizabeth had a random affair with the Earl of Oxford, the alleged "real" author of all of Shakespeare's plays; an affair for which there is not even a shred of evidence. Apparently, writer John Orloff is well aware of these discrepencies, and included them intentionally to pay homage to "the way that Shakespeare took liberties with historical facts in his plays". That seems like a bit of a stretch...
Anyways, the plot is basically a twist of how the Earl of Oxford, Edward De Vere, wrote so many marvelous plays and then needed a face to cover for him lest he face persecution for being involved in the forbidden world of theater. This plotline is laced with flashbacks to him as a young man (played by a rather dreadful actor- no offense to him really, maybe it was just the dialogue that could not be helped? I'm not sure...) getting it on with Queen Elizabeth despite the fact that he is already married. There is no prologue or any sort of clear explanation as to who is who in the begininng, so it actually got to the point where my friend and I had to look up the characters on the internet as we watched. Not a good sign.
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