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Rating:  -
I was extremely pleased with the outcome of this movie. The screenplay is very well written, incorporating mainly Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet into the movie while also adding other various works of Shakespeare's. The movie has a semi-historical basis to it and portrays vast romantic comedy throughout. One of my favorite feel good romantic comedies to watch! Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow have great chemistry on set!
Rating: -
Well done, moving.
The music, the acting, the classic performances from Romeo and Juliet.
Loved it
Rating: -
Shakespeare in Love is the rarest of films. It is at once intelligent and witty; comical and serious; romantic and swashbuckling. It evokes the mid to late 16th century with Oscar nods for costume design and "art Direction-set Decoration". But my personal favorite, when it came to historical accuracy, was the throwing of waste water from houses/taverns directly into the street. We saw this when Geoffrey Rush's fantastic comic character Philip Henslowe trudged about the streets. The emptied waste buckets landed either just in front of him, or behind him. That served as a just reminder to any who might have overly romantic notions about living in that time. Sewage systems had yet to be perfected.
Joseph Fiennes received the same snub at the Oscars that DiCaprio had just one year prior: he appeared in almost all of the scenes, yet wasn't nominated. That's more than passing strange. How is it that an actor can appear in nearly the entire film, yet not be judged as lending to its perceived greatness (it won 7 Oscars)?
The entire ensemble worked quite well together; indeed, they were awarded with the Actor for Best Ensemble from the Screen Actors Guild. Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth, Gwyneth Paltrow as Shakespeare's muse, Violet (both of whom won Oscars for their roles), and Geoffrey Rush were highlights. Judi Dench turned in what must now be known as a "Hopkins performance". Hopkins was on the screen for 15 minutes in The Silence of the Lambs, and won Best Supporting Actor. Dench was on screen for a reported 8 minutes, and she won Best Supporting Actress.
The Amazon reviewer indicated that it would take a Shakespearean scholar to "dissect the numerous parallels", and when I saw this first in the theatre, in 1998, I thought the same myself. Watching it again today, I wish I'd spent more time brushing up on Shakespeare. The screen writers brilliantly used real people (Christopher Marlowe, Henslowe, Burbage), and I know that several "jokes" were lost on me. I'm not sure that I'm going to spend the requisite time brushing up on Shakespeare (is there such a thing without immersion?), but the movie caused such desire within me.
Rating: -
This take on Shakespeare is one of the most lingeringly magnificent deeply moving movie that has come our way, bar none. The sound track, some hilarious scenes and stunning performances by many of our favorite actors take me to a time and place that is both timeless and spaceless. It is divine to have a copy to watch whenever I want and when I do, I wake up to music that will not banish itself from my heart every morning for weeks. Just loved this movie.
Rating:  -
This film functions on two levels--as a rapturously beautiful love story between Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes, and as a satire on the harsh realities of Elizabethan England in the tradition of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "Blackadder II." My favorite part is the boy outside the theater playing with rats, who turns out to be John Webster, future author of Elizabethan gorefests "The Duchess of Malfi" and "The White Devil"--Edgar Allen Poe's predecessor and the man who should perhaps be considered the true inventor of giallo.
It's a safe bet Elizabethan England was never quite like this. But then the antebellum south was never quite like "Gone With the Wind" and ancient Rome was never quite like "Gladiator." Half the fun is spotting the errors: i.e., Colin Firth inviting everyone to his tobacco plantation in Virginia in 1593, when Jamestown wouldn't be settled until 1607 and tobacco wouldn't be introduced to the colony until 1619 (along with slavery, but that's a different story).
All cavils aside, this film does catch a young William Shakespeare at a point in his life when he was trying to break free from Christopher Marlowe's shadow and find his own poetic voice. Joseph Fiennes is splendid as a young "Will" Shakespeare, a bohemian living on the edge whose art draws its inspiration from life on the street. The historical Shakespeare was in all likelihood gay or bisexual, so it's oddly fitting that he's first attracted to Lady Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) when she's disguised as a boy.
Ah, Gwyneth . . . it's hard to recapture the crush I had on her when this movie was made. Now she's lost whatever cool she once had. But this was before Coldplay, before Apple, before she said Americans were less intelligent than Brits. Now it seems like she will never repeat the magic of this one film. But it was great while it lasted.
The rest of the cast is great, except for the eternally annoying Ben Affleck as Edward Alleyn. Dame Judi Dench's Elizabeth is probably not as close to the original as Bette Davis nor as funny as Miranda Richardson in Blackadder II, but she won a well-deserved Oscar for her role. Geoffrey Rush steals the show as mercenary theater producer Philip Henslowe and Tom Wilkinson has a striking role as ruthless loan shark Mr. Fennyman, who shows an unexpected sensitive side in his reaction to Shakespeare's poetry--indeed, his appreciation of Shakespeare's genius is far more genuine than Henslowe's.
This film has suffered perhaps from a post-Oscar backlash and the outrage of critics who thought "Saving Private Ryan" should have been Best Picture; sure, it's a better film, but at the time we were all so in love with Gwyneth we didn't care. First love is always the best; there will never be another love story like this one, that's for sure.
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