Shakespeare In Love (1998) won all the major Academy Awards, and you simply can’t argue with the plaudits it received. The acting is excellent throughout scores of supporting cast, and the script is as cleverly well written as any in recent memory. Did it deserve Best Picture, against Life Is Beautiful, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, and Elizabeth?
The premise is set where Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is struggling to finish a play. It’s called Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter. It’s a horrible title, he admits to Christopher Marlowe, played well by Rupert Everett. In a lighthearted scene, Marlowe begins suggesting improvements that the viewer recognizes as the structure for what would become Romeo and Juliet. The tone of the movie is, brilliantly, like the most clever and humorous of Shakespeare’s actual plays. Immediately, we are struck with the tongue-in-cheek approach to the script, with Shakespeare jotting lines down to his memory as he overhears them. A simply hilarious Geoffrey Rush plays Henslowe, the theater owner, in a role that is at once both slapstick and slyly clever. Ian McClellan plays the money, and is equally well cast. The supporting cast are the film’s greatest strength, in my mind, and that includes Ben Affleck.
The play Shakespeare is writing gets funded and cast without a finished script. Gwyneth Paltrow enters as Viola, a wealthy young lady with a love of the theater. In another clever nod to actual Shakespeare style, she disguises herself as Thomas Kent and auditions and gets cast in the play, as Romeo. She also engages in a romance with Will Shakespeare (who, thankfully, is never unaware that she is masquerading as Thomas Kent.) The romance is the heart of the movie, so to speak, and it’s done in a grand, sweeping fashion. The passion and doomed nature of their relationship inspire Shakespeare to actually pen Romeo and Juliet, and the various scenes in which the play is being scripted are among the best in the film. Paltrow is at once graceful and strong, and she was awarded the Best Actress appropriately.
The movie moves at a great pace, with appropriate amounts of both drama and comedy. Another strength is that it builds upon the plot of Romeo and Juliet, so it benefits from using that phenomenal plot. The implausibilities within the film are actually enjoyable, as they mimic the same such flaws in actual Shakespearean plays women masquerading as men without anyone noticing, misunderstandings through casual dialogue, etc. Every actor handles the Elizabethan English superbly, and it’s also clear that each actor is thoroughly enjoying his or her role. The script dances the line perfectly: Shakespearean satire that everyone can enjoy is not something just anyone can churn out Tom Stoppard did himself a good one with this. Shakespeare In Love is a wonderful film, of this there is no question.
A second viewing of it only reinforces this (it’s currently in the Unbelievably Heavy Rotation Cycle on Starz, of which I was surprised to find out I receive). It begs the question of what happened to Joseph Fiennes, who I don’t think has yet followed this up. The depth and breadth of strong acting is simply astonishing, and the film is at once a comic romp and also wholly plausible. If you actively hate Shakespeare, I suppose this film probably isn’t for you. But even if you only half-heartedly appreciate his work, Shakespeare In Love will resonate with you.