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SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE Send This Review to a Friend
A glorious entertainment, this classy romantic comedy fictionally speculating on Shakespeare's life at a critical stage in his career is a witty delight from start to finish. Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard have fashioned a smart, literate screenplay laced with clever dialogue, contemporary in-jokes that nonetheless fit the time period and a peach of a plot that parallels "Romeo and Juliet" in numerous respects. Directed with elan by John Madden, the film is impeccably cast.
Joseph Fiennes makes a dashing young Shakespeare, who is in the throes of writing a potential turkey called "Romeo and Ethel, The Pirate's Daughter." Gwyneth Paltrow could not be more engaging as his love and muse. The plot is filled with such amusing ingredients as rivalry between Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe and the problems of getting plays written and staged. There are many colorfully acted roles by such cast members as Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck, Simon Callow, Imelda Staunton, and perhaps best of all, Judi Dench as an acerbic, all-wise Queen Elizabeth.
The sets and costumes are terrific and the situations unflaggingly inventive. Here's a movie steeped in both fun and intelligence. A Miramax release.
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