Wow... that was awful

[shipperx]

So, I saw that Anonymous was OnDemand this month.  (It was the movie that was saying that Shakespeare's plays weren't written by Shakespeare).

Friends, I watched it.  And I have to agree with the reviewer who said that it could have been a fun satirical farce.  However, trying to take this load of twaddle remotely seriously?  Ha!

Forget the entire "Shakespeare conspiracy" of it.  That was the nutty stuff I knew the movie was about.  And don't bother with "The Virgin Queen" wasn't actually a virgin, because that's always wondered about.   The topper of this ludicrous ice cream sundae is that it posits that Queen Elizabeth had not one, not two, but THREE bastard sons! (And history never noticed!)  

Just to make it even more ridiculous.  She actually gets pregnant by her own bastard son, and has a double bastard grandson!  She's a Granny-mommy (It's so Westeros!) 

Oh, she didn't know she had a child by her own child because, apparently, she had a way of losing track of her illegitimate children! (And of course nobles were all too willing to adopt these illegitimate foundlings, giving them their lands and titles... even though they gained no advantage from it because not even the queen knew what had happened to the spawn, who or where they were, or who was raising them! Irony is then found in her executing one of them for treason.  [That would be Essex].)

Oh,  and if you're curious, it's her illegitimate son-lover that she had her own grandson with who (this film claims) was the "real" William Shakespeare!

.... Riiiiiiiiggggghhhhhtttttt.  Bwhahahaha!

( The sad part is, the mini-stagings of bits of Shakespeare's plays are actually interesting.  And the mother/daughter team of Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson playing old and young Elizabeth respectively was quite fetching.  Given their identical eyes and cheekbones and their similar mannerisms, you could actually buy that they were the older and younger version of the same woman.)

Comments

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Anonymous. We tried watching that on a family movie night. Halfway through, my dad pauses the DVD, looks over at me (as the resident English major Shakespeare expert), and asks, "what the hell is going on?" I didn't have an answer for him. It was beyond me.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

There was a review somewhere saying that it would take someone familiar with the real history to even spot the points where history ever intersected with the farce.

This was compounded by the non-linear aspect of the way they tried to tell it.

(It also probably would have helped the coherence if they had stuck with just ONE conspiracy theory rather than what looks like seven of them).

[usedtobeljs]

I actually am relieved to hear that it was such twaddle -- I mean, the premise turned me right off, but GOOD GOD that sounds execrable.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

If they had just tipped it one tiny little bit it would have been hilarious. It was so close. All would have take was any self-awareness on the part of the people making this. That and a sense of humor.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

Off with their heads.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth did that... with Essex. ;)

[jerusha]

O.o

This is like the time I tried to explain the first two seasons of Veronica Mars by just hitting the highlights, and they stared at me like I'd gone insane. Of course, VM was actually good.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Hee! This was just a succession of conspiracy theories thrown together for a Gary Stu (seriously De Vere -- the "real" Shakespeare) was portrayed as wunderkind, poet, playwrite, swordsman, politician, and both lover AND son of the queen!

It also was funny to me when they had the reveal halfway through that South Hampton was his SON. I was -- wait! I thought he was his boyfriend!

Hee!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

...

...

...BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

I love it when conspiracy nuts of whatever ilk do things like this: they finally get a stage, they finally get a budget, they finally get to have uninterrupted say... and still reveal themselves to be complete nutjobs. Heee.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Conspicary THEORIES. They couldn't decide on one and so decided to use many of them, even when they required his being both the son AND the lover of the Queen!

He was also an obnoxious Marty Sue who was a writing wunderkind, poet, playwrite, swordsman, and master politician on top of being son and lover of the Queen AND the 'rightful' heir to the throne! Oh, and yeah, the 'real' Shakespeare!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

But come on, it's still more plausible than the idea that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, right? I mean, that's just preposterous.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, reading that plot synopsis...was worse than reading the plot synopsis of the last season of OLTL...which is saying something. Plus headache inducing.

Yet, oddly funny.

So the real Shakespeare is the bastard son/incestuous love of Queen Elizabeth? Methinks whoever wrote this has been reading GoT and watching GH on the sly. (And no, it wasn't me.) ;-)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

If only. It was painfully clear by the end that we were to be moved by this horrible, horrible tragedy perpetrated on this total douchebag.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I thought about renting that one...but very glad skipped. Shakespeare conspiracy theories are sort of silly. The only one I sort of buy is that various people in his company took turns collaborating and writing them and it was easier at that time to credit one guy. That - I'll buy. Except for the fact that he wrote in the same consistent style, which is not easy to duplicate. So, no, it was most likely one writer and it was most likely Shakespeare, just like Dickens wrote all his work, and King wrote all of his...people are idiots. LOL!

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

Hahahahaha!

I'm sure it would have been quite easy for a royal heir/sovereign of the realm (not sure which she was during these events!) to cover up three pregnancies that resulted in live births! After all, there was so much privacy it wasn't as if dozens of people would be privy to the information or anything.

Jeez.

I'm glad you watched this mess so I won't have to.

How about the underlying classist assumptions? Of course no actor -- son of a glover no less -- could write these plays. It must be someone with a noble or royal connection.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it would have been quite easy for a royal heir/sovereign of the realm (not sure which she was during these events!) to cover up three pregnancies that resulted in live births!

I know, right? Totally easy to hide THREE pregnancies in a situation where she doesn't even dress herself but has an entire entourage that does so!

And the classist stuff is really disturbing. Not only do they make Shakespeare (not the "Earl of Oxford actually wrote it" guy) a total idiot. But they also made him a coward, a blackmailer (Of Oxford), a bad actor, and a freaking murderer! (he killed Kit Marlowe to prevent the 'secret' from being outed). It was honestly offensive.