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 Winner of seven Academy Awards, Shakespeare In Love is a delirious, delicious exercise in literary in-jokes and guffaw provoking anachronism, along with a romantic storyline that shows how true love can overcome writer’s block. (Which even the greatest--and I mean, the greatest--writers are prone to). Let’s start with the jokes and temporal funny stuff and you’ll see what a witty script was fashioned by ace playwright Tom Stoppard and his co-author Marc Norman.
Director John Madden almost immediately shows us Shakespeare, played by Joseph Fiennes, laboring halfheartedly away at a blood and thunder epic called Romeo and Ethel, The Pirate’s Daughter. Shakespeare writes furiously. Then Madden shoots over his shoulder and we see that William has been merely signing his name, over and over, on a huge sheet of parchment. As there are only a couple of authentic Shakespeare autographs now in existence, all on legal documents, such a parchment, if found, would be worth millions. (Okay, it’s not a sidesplitting joke, but Shakespearians will love it. And it’s definitely the sort of behavior a troubled writer with pretensions to greatness would engage in.) Then Shakespeare, blocked and under deadline pressure, goes to what he calls his “weekly confession,” which turns out to be a session with a necromancer, Dr. Moth, played by the wonderful Anthony Sher, who was Benjamin Disraeli in Madden’s previous film, Mrs. Brown. As Shakespeare reclines on Moth’s couch, the good doctor turns over his hourglass, William catalogs his problems, and the psychiatric gag cunningly plays out, right down to Dr. Moth at the end saying, “Same time next week, then?” It’s a rich and frothy beginning. And if your taste really runs to complex intellectual kidding around, you may be disappointed when the romantic plotline takes over, because the highbrow highjinks inevitably diminish. But this is not to say that Shakespeare In Love becomes boring. Thanks to the luminous Gwyneth Paltrow--who has now played Englishwomen so many times she might as well move there--as Shakespeare’s inamorata, the love story is completely believable. Paltrow’s Viola de Lesseps, would-be performer in an era when women were banned from the stage, is so gorgeous and spirited, she could have provided the inspiration for Juliet and every other Shakespeare heroine written after 1592. But the introduction of the love interest (the whole point of calling a film Shakespeare In Love I guess) dramatically changes the rhythm that Madden establishes in the first thirty minutes, so that what promised to be a brainy knockabout burlesque instead plays out the age old sequence of “boy meets girl, boy loses girl,” etc. etc. Along the way, however, Shakespeare In Love, with the strongest supporting cast since maybe Around the World in Eighty Days, delivers many a good jibe about theatrical life and the egos and eccentricities of those who pursue it. Geoffrey Rush, sporting the ugliest teeth in history, is both weaselly and sympathetic as Henslowe, a theater manager (and true historical figure) desperate for a new Shakespeare play to get the cash to pay off Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson), a strong arm money lender who really wants to produce and act. Colin Firth is the Earl of Wessex, a purely fictional nasty boy who wants to wed Viola, daughter of a wealthy tradesman, to shore up his sagging fortunes. Ben Affleck, as Elizabethan acting superstar Ned Alleyn, shows that he can hold his own in heady company--no other young Hollywood actor could have brought half the authority Affleck does to the role. And other British acting luminaries such as Jim Carter and Simon Callow bring large talents to small parts. And although she has only about ten minutes worth of screentime, Judi Dench, Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown, made enough of her brief appearance as Queen Elizabeth I to win a best supporting actress Oscar. Dench, who is the most celebrated English actress of her generation and who has played nearly all the great Shakespearian women’s roles from Juliet, to Lady Macbeth, to Titania, plays Elizabeth as if the queen herself were a theatrical grande dame. This is a woman who has been queen of England for a long time and, by golly, isn’t shy about letting everyone know it. Perhaps the best service Madden and his writers do Shakespeare is to show that, four hundred years ago, these plays weren’t Literature with a capital L. They were, rather, public entertainments, perfectly understandable to the illiterate masses who flocked to the theater for the duels, stabbings, poisonings, and passionate embraces that made a Shakespeare play such boffo box office. Sort of like the “slasher” teen films of today, but on a slightly more elevated level! Note: In addition to Judi Dench’s Oscar, Shakespeare in Love’s major Academy Awards included Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress (Paltrow). This film is also available from Amazon in DVD format and as a DVD collector's edition. |
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