Another visually beautiful poster of 2011. This is one of those "what if" films that plays with the conspiracy theory that William Shakespeare in fact did not write his own material but only took credit for them. And it's a damn interesting and exciting film!
The film is directed by Roland Emmerich, which comes as quite a surprise being that Emmerich usually directs "end of the world" type of films like "2012" and "Independence Day". Much praise to Emmerich though for this amazing little film. I say little because it was treated quite poorly at the box office, it was in fact a flop. On it's budget of 30 million dollars it only made back about 15 million dollars worldwide. Which is quite sad being that this film really is great! I'd even say better than great!
Sure it's an "unconventional" plot, but that's what's exciting about it. It's quite a ballsy film. Much more respect to Roland Emmerich due to the fact that he produced the film entirely himself. He had been saving up his money from past projects and shoved it all into this production so that the studios couldn't control him. I must say I admire that tremendously! That alone should make you want to support this film more, I know it makes me want to.
The storytelling is quite amazing, it's told in such a different way, the way the film is built up is interesting. It starts of by an older man, in modern time, telling the story in front of a large audience and then it takes us back in time to the era the story is set in. The editing for that specific scene is very clever, the way those two scenes emerge.
The acting is brilliant. A very interesting thing about this film is that Joely Richardson plays the role of a young Queen Elizabeth I and her real life mother, Oscar Winner Vanessa Redgrave plays the older Queen Elizabeth I. I just love that about the casting! We can also see Rhys Ifans, Sebastian Armesto, David Thewlis, Edward Hoff, Xavier Samuel and Jamie Campbell Bower. Rafe Spall, son of actor Timothy Spall plays William Shakespeare brilliantly!
It is nominated for an Academy Award in the category "Best Achievement in Costume Design" and rightfully so. It has a very big shot at winning.
It may seem a little too dragged out to some, as it did to me. If it were all a little more compact it would be running much more smoothly. But it's still a very entertaining movie and I advise you all to see it.. preferable in a legal way to support the great Roland Emmerich. While it's not a masterpiece, it's still a damn fine film!
My rating: 7,7/10
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