Director Roland Emmerich makes a break from his long string of big special effects disaster films with Anonymous, an historical drama that suggests Shakespeare was a fraud. Edward de Vere (Rhys Ifans) is an aristocrat who yearns to write poetry and plays, but due to social and political constraints, he is forced to use a front for his political-minded works because they subtly encourage Queen Elizabeth to alter her plan for succession in a way that is in direct opposition to her most trusted political advisers. When drunken, illiterate, fame-hungry actor William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall) passes of the plays as his own, de Vere finds his foil, but must deal with blackmail when the morally dubious thespian wants more and more. Anonymous screened at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.