Review of Shakespeare in Love (1998) by Liam C — 18 Nov 2013

This is a beautiful movie and is also very smart with countless references to Shakespeare's plays. I'll admit, when I first heard of it, I thought it'd be silly and it seemed really unrealistic given that its a work of fiction based on a real (which could be debated by some) person but that's kind of its charm, the movie very well plays out like Romeo and Juliet, which was probably the point but it's just so smart and it makes me smile.

What I love about John Madden's romance, or at least of what I've seen of it so far in 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' and this, is its played out to be realistic and it's as least mushy as it can be.

It could have very easily been a strictly female targeted film with mushy over the top romance to appeal to teenagers but for pretty much the entirety of the film it's very believable and I got swept up with it.

While I doubt anyone actually would think that it's a gender neutral film given the title but he does a good job, like always. It's such a great movie that I just got swept away with it and felt like I was there with them, its such a great piece of filmmaking, totally believable.

Poor Joseph Fiennes! He seemed to get no recognition for this and seems to have gone away, but if he has, I hope he feels happy he did this. The rest of the casting was flawless but Ben Affleck felt like a really odd choice, he played his character well and its great that he's there but I really didnt expect to see him, it just seemed so out of place,but like I said, he did a good job, so he was a good choice and did well.

The only complaint I have about the film is the Oscars, which even isn't about the film but they just puzzled me. Judi Dench got an Oscar? For what? Being in the film five minutes and playing M? I'm sorry, I don't see what was so fascinating about it! Maybe the competition was poor.

Speaking of poor, poor Geoffrey Rush, he worked hard and was funny, give him the damn Oscar! He deserved it. The Oscars always seem to annoy someone, they went through their biopic phase, oh I'm sorry, their 2nd biopic phase and now they were on their romantic phase but it didn't feel like a candidate for the Oscar until the end, which is when the most mattered.

Oh, I'll just stop talking about them. At the end of the day, its a brilliant film.