She brings clarity and credibility to the key role of Queen Elizabeth, who presides, Solomon-like, over Shakespeare in Love’s England.
Judi Dench, meanwhile, may now finally have her fill of playing royalty, having anchored Madden’s previous film, Mrs. This is likely to emerge as the star vehicle that has eluded her since 1996’s Emma. Her performance seems tentative in spots (and who could believe that Gwyneth in a goatee could ever be mistaken for a boy, even in Elizabethan garb?), but she does nail the Shakespeare. Here, she’s less specific and far more ravishing. In both Great Expectations and Sliding Doors, she was photographed in a way that drew attention to her rail-thin limbs and dressed-by-Gucci good looks. The film is similarly flattering to Paltrow. Here, it’s an impetuous virtue, with Fiennes’ Shakespeare sweeping the entire company up - even the prima donna Ned Alleyn (Ben Affleck), playing Mercutio - in the enthusiasm surrounding his tragic yarn. Fiennes’ boyishness worked to his disadvantage in Elizabeth, where he seemed too thinly drawn for the political intrigue of that picture. The casting is shrewd, with a rich ensemble helping us revel in the melodrama that saturates the film. Judging by the roars of laughter from the preview audience, Miramax and Universal have a serious crowd-pleaser on their hands. What matters is that it’s all executed with humor, smarts, and an unobtrusive stylishness that catches you up in the storytelling, from the sharp, densely colored widescreen cinematography to the surprisingly deft choreography of a show-stopping swordfight. In the film’s lushly realized centerpiece love scene, Viola’s breasts are unbound and Will finds the meaning that has so far eluded him. That you can imagine much of what happens next is unimportant - yes, the two of them fall in love, and yes, Will draws on his passion for Viola to create a lushly romantic Romeo and Juliet, and yes, it’s the impossibility of their love that gives his newly retitled play its tragic bite. There, she auditions for the part of Romeo before a clueless Shakespeare. However, Viola is so taken by Will’s performance for Her Majesty that she steals into the theater disguised as a boy, for women were not allowed on stage. Will is advised to forget about her - not only is she a member of the upper class, far beyond the reach of a mere playwright, but she’s already betrothed to the boorish Lord Wessex (Colin Firth), who plans to carry her away to his plantation in Virginia. The film has an angst-ridden Will trotting uneasily around Elizabethan London, taking mental notes on overheard fragments of dialogue, bantering with rival playwright Christopher Marlowe (a dashing Rupert Everett), and putting off his deadlines in hopes of encountering his muse.Īs the title suggests, he finds it in the form of a beautiful woman at Queen Elizabeth’s court, Lady Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow). Under pressure from beleagured theater owner Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush) and producer Hugh Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson), he’s having a devil of a time getting a grip on his newest comedy, which he’s titled Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter. Joseph Fiennes plays a handsome, credibly intense Shakespeare who’s struggling with a new play as the film opens.
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Summing up the tastes of the mass audience, one character remarks, “Love, and a bit with a dog - that’s what they want.” (Notably, this movie has both.)
All the cliches are accounted for, from the size of actors’ egos to the intricacies and absurdities of billing. No, we don’t need this movie to tell us that Will Shakespeare sure could turn a phrase, but the reverence is appropriate in a film that doubles as a valentine to the theater. And when the movie takes a breather, as it often does, to wallow in Shakespeare’s original dialogue, the results are suitably magical. Here’s a movie that revels in the old-fashioned task of creating rapid-fire dialogue that cracks wise even as it reveals character. So it was with no small measure of charm and aplomb that director John Madden’s fanciful imagining of the early days of William Shakespeare won me over.Ĭo-written by Marc Norman ( Cutthroat Island) and Tom Stoppard ( Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Brazil) - who, on this evidence, doesn’t work in films often enough - the script moves quickly, making it a pleasure just to keep up. Second, there was the uninspiring trailer that’s begun showing in front of art flicks in New York. First off, there’s that sick-making title, half Hallmark card and half Harlequin romance. I had my doubts about Shakespeare in Love on my way into the theater.