By STEVE PERSALL St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 25, 1998
Shall I compare thee to an action flick? Thou art more witty, sexy, sweet and warm, No morphing monster, no karate kick, No drooling space-bug beats this movie's charm.
Filling in the gaps in Shakespeare's biography launches the movie surprise of the season, a sprightly, witty romp that transforms the ponderous Bard of Avon into just plain Will
History has trained us to think the masters of classical arts were as stately and cold as the marble busts shaped in their honor. That is why we need films such as Amadeus, Surviving Picasso and Immortal Beloved to remind modern audiences that the masters didn't live with nearly as much propriety and assurance as centuries of reverence would have us believe.
None of those films has punctured the noble artist myth with as much cheery intelligence and madcap love as John Madden's Shakespeare in Love, focusing on the playwright's life when he wasn't even the best author on London's Elizabethan theater row. Perhaps his next play, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter, will be a breakthrough, if the dashing rogue can locate a sensual muse to cure his writer's block.
Even the most Bard-challenged moviegoer knows that Shakespeare's idea will turn into something very different from what he or his nervous investors intended. Madden doesn't want to rewrite history as much as take advantage of a period when it was negligent. Details about Shakespeare's life between 1585 and 1592 are sketchy, so the filmmakers use that gap to create sprightly conjecture that makes a movie lover swoon.
Screenwriters Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman have crafted a plot full of romance, bawdy twists, gender bending, swordplay and flowery wit that would make their subject proud. Stoppard already displayed an innovative imagination for this topic in his stageplay Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which built a story around two minor characters from Hamlet. Once again, he delights in knocking the stuffiness out of a literary icon he obviously loves.
Shakespeare in Love is dense with period detail, yet possesses a canny awareness of contemporary tastes. The most surprising aspect of the script is how cleverly Norman and Stoppard draw comparisons between 16th-century values and those today.
Backstage, the actors, writers and producers surrounding young Will Shakespeare have the same artistic egos, selfishness and troupe prejudices that were lampooned in The Player and Get Shorty. In the streets, audiences mill around theaters waiting for the next dog-and-clown show. Politicians and conservatives press for control of the arts. Everything about this atmosphere of lust and profit seems familiar, except for the dank settings and puffy costumes.
Will (Joseph Fiennes) struts through this professional minefield with a swashbuckler's flair, never seriously imagining that his works will be good for anything except paying the bills. Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter is just a fast turnaround project for a seedy producer (Geoffrey Rush) who still owes him for One Gentleman of Verona. It probably won't measure up to anything written by his rival, Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett).
Then, Will's muse arrives in the angelic form of Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow), an heiress with an affection for the theater and Shakespeare's words in particular. Their class differences are an obstacle, and Viola is promised to a pompous nobleman (Colin Firth), who will take her away to his Virginia plantation. Will has to beat two deadlines, one personal and one for the masses, before destiny intrudes again.
Along the way, Madden has great fun with Will's creative process, quite aware that nobody could merely sit at a table and compose such classics. We see and hear what he absorbs and incorporates into the final product, from shouts in the street to Marlowe's suggestion of a good name for Romeo's friend, to a balcony encounter with Viola. Will's spit-and-spin ritual before writing is only one of the ordinary-guy attributes he's given. Shakespeare in Love is a portrait of the artist as a young, confused and enormously magnetic man.
Fiennes is a dynamic screen presence, more sensual than his older brother, Ralph Fiennes, with a brooding appeal that can melt into a puppy-love gaze at the drop of a sonnet. He delivers a starmaking performance that simmers with promise, although it will be interesting to chart his direction after his concurrent appearances in leotards here and in Elizabeth.
Paltrow is proving herself to be an American actor at home with British accents and sensibilities. This role allows her to exude the same feathery spell she cast as Emma, in a role that has some of the modern feminism of Sliding Doors when Viola dons drag clothing to pursue her own acting dream. Paltrow and Fiennes handle Madden's volleys of romantic prose with shimmering success.
The most memorable side players in this whimsical scenario include Rush's jittery depiction of theatrical greed, a regal turn by Judi Dench that adds some warm blood to Queen Elizabeth's image, and Ben Affleck's seeming slightly too modern to play an Elizabethan actor. Each of the performers relishes the language they're offered, and the chance to jab show business conventions.
Shakespeare in Love takes its historical period seriously, as Madden did with last year's Mrs. Brown. Nobody should use it as a term paper resource, but a film this much fun shouldn't be approached as a class assignment, either. If success didn't happen this way for young Will Shakespeare, it should have.
Grade: A
