SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1999 David N. Butterworth
***1/2 stars (out of ****)
With hundreds of sonnets, comedies, tragedies, and patriotic histories to his name, William Shakespeare seems an unlikely candidate for writer's block. But that's the conundrum facing the illustrious Bard at the outset of "Shakespeare in Love," a deliciously witty and inventive comedy drama that reminds us once again of the true genius of England's greatest writer.
London, 1593, and Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes, no doubt sick of being referred to as "Ralph's little brother") is struggling with his latest play. He needs inspiration in the form of a muse and finds it in Viola De Lesseps (a radiant Gwyneth Paltrow), who auditions for the male lead (since women weren't allowed on stage in Elizabethan England). It isn't long before Viola, still in drag, starts canoodling in the wings with the smitten playwright.
Unfortunately Viola is to be wed this fortnight to the odious Lord Wessex (Colin Firth), which puts a bit of a crimp in our heroes' romantic future.
It goes without saying that this is a purely invented account of what inspired Will to write "Romeo and Juliet" (working title: "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter"), but it's absolutely credible and great fun in what it supposes. Like any good Shakespearean work, "Shakespeare in Love" is filled with love, sex, villainy, despair, tears, sword fights, men dressed as women, women dressed as men, buffoonery, ribald humor, intimidating penmanship...and a dog!
Writers Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard (who's been down a similar road before with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead") take great delight in mirroring the diction, the meter, and the sentiment of Shakespeare's English. Their screenplay is punctuated with earnest soliloquies, anachronistic asides and, most effectively, the kind of adult humor missing from so many mainstream scripts. Where else but in "Shakespeare in Love" might you find "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?" within spitting distance of "for sixpence a line I'd cause a riot in a nunnery."
As sophisticated as the writing is, it's not the be all and end all of the piece. "Shakespeare in Love" is a real team effort, from the fine direction of John Madden ("Mrs. Brown") to a superlative cast. "Shine"'s Geoffrey Rush plays the fool, Judi Dench plays the Queen, and Tom ("The Full Monty") Wilkinson, Ben ("Armageddon") Affleck, and Rupert ("My Best Friend's Wedding") Everett all give fine accountings, with Everett brief but fun as Will's rival playwright, the ill-fated Christopher Marlowe.
Fiennes and Paltrow, of course, are terrific and make a handsomely engaging couple, even if the latter's nude scenes do seem cheap and somewhat distracting in this otherwise high-class production.
That said, "Shakespeare in Love" remains a wicked and wonderfully mature period romance, one with which the Bard himself, no doubt, would have been proud to be associated.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb61@hotmail.com
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