Review of Shakespeare in Love (1998) by Ben S — 25 Feb 2013

Saccharine period romantic comedy, set against the backdrop of theatreland in Elizabethan London. Struggling young playwright William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) has sold his titled but unwritten new play (Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter) to two rival theatre owners to earn a couple of extra shillings. Unfortunately he is without a muse and woefully uninspired to write..... until the beautiful, theatre loving Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) enters his life - disguised as a man so she is able to audition for his play. Their exploits inspire him to create his most famous work, Romeo and Juliet.

Despite being the most lightweight piece of froth imaginable 'Shakespeare in Love' still won seven Oscars in 1999 - no doubt due to American fetishism with historical chocolate box Britain and the powerful sway of tyrannical producer Harvey Weinstein. In many ways it's a box ticking exercise in what The Academy look for in a British film - history, romance, double-entendres, the monarchy, Judi Dench. This isn't necessarily a criticism though as it all goes to shape it into a warm, comforting experience - passingly enjoyable but wholly unremarkable and unlikely to live long in the memory. Joseph Fiennes provides an energetic performance as Shakespeare with some theatrical touches of Richard E. Grant's Withnail, dashing through his chaotic life from one animated scene to the next. He and Geoffrey Rush's Philip Henslowe supply some decent laughs in the film's initial farcical stages, but at the introduction of Paltrow it all becomes far too wet and slushy. At its heart there is a decent script by Tom Stoppard but it's occasionally hard to see it through the rose tinting. When the dialogue does take centre stage there are some fantastically well shaped lines all with a real feeling of farce and the stage about them.

The cast is a who's who of British acting talent that will prompt numerous "what was he in again?"s, all of them putting in decent performances, and in general the idolised vision of 'Olde London' has been well created by all involved. A tooth-rottingly sweet affair - but to its credit that's all it ever set out to be, and in terms of a soppy period comedy it couldn't be much better. If the tepid 'Titanic' is capable of bringing home eleven Oscars, who's to say this doesn't deserve seven?