Anonymous

Truly, with a top notch cast comes Shakespeare as you've never seen him before. As if he might as well have been a glorious actor who didn't even know how to write with a quill.

This is the story about Queen Elizabeth and all those that surrounded her to make her life quite lonely. Of course, she did love arts. Even so, doesn't mean much in its own time, but centuries later we marvel at the wit and perhaps more realism to those poet's words, than we might never know.

Edward..played by Rhys Ifans(older) and Jamie Campbell Bower(younger), comes to life the soul of Shakespeare. Of course, a wicked story comes this way through, politics, religion and all of Queen Elizabeth's bastards. Weave in a wonderful Will S. (Rafe Spall) and even more bitter Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto) through the theater and you have so many stories going on. You might not get it completely straight.

  
Ben Jonson: Politics? My play has nothing to do with politics. It's just a simple comedy. 

Earl of Oxford: It showed your betters as fools who'd go through life barely managing to get food from plate to mouth were it not for the cleverness of their servants. All art is political, Jonson, otherwise it would just be decoration. And all artists have something to say, otherwise they'd make shoes. And you are not a cobbler, are you Jonson.

Joely Richardson as the young Queen Elisabeth while Vanessa Redgraves played the queen as she was older.

But as in those days, there was a lot of cat and mouse. Hush hush parenting and a few slipups which makes a remarkable soap opera of sorts. Even so, such a sexy Jamie Campbell Bower who could definitely deliver a line, a scene and even more in this movie.

Personally, I was also wanting more of Sebastian Amremsto as well. Then even more eye-candy I could only wish who would have know the truth of their heritage, Earl of Southhampton(Xavier Samuels) and the Earl of Essex(Sam Reid).- Ellie

Young Earl of Oxford: [after sword gets knocked into young Robert Cecil's chess game] You were losing anyway.
Boy Robert Cecil: [had been playing alone] I was also winning!
Young Earl of Oxford: [tosses a piece back at Robert, who misses it] Really?

Oh, and those villians, the true rulers of the age! David Thewlis and Edward Hogg as father and son...The Cecils.

Its hard to say if you'll buy this version of the come about of Shakespeare's plays. Even so, I love the scene where Edward tells his wife how he heard voices and he would go mad if he didn't write it down. Of course, he truly never got the credit of his passion.

If you want to see a rewrite of history that might have more truth than told in the history books, please take a peek at this wonderful period piece movie. Lots of wit and twist and turns in this film. The costuming was divine, as well.

STORYLINE: The theory that it was in fact Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford, who penned Shakespeare's plays. Set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I and the Essex rebellion against her.

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