Shakespeare in Love is a lusty, lavish costume epic about the lovesick agony William Shakespeare went through while writing Romeo and Juliet. It’s an elaborate fiction, but there’s something freshly captivating about it, which is more than you can usually say about historical facts. From everything I’ve read about the Bard, he was a pretty dull fellow whose most famous plays may have been written by (or stolen from) Christopher Marlowe, and whose marriage to Anne Hathaway was a literary bore. But with dashing Joseph Fiennes, fresh from his sexy role as Lord Dudley in the tedious Elizabeth, playing the randy Will, and glamorous Gwyneth Paltrow as his mistress and inspiration, history doesn’t much matter. These two stars are as pretty as magazine covers.
The year is 1593. Anne Hathaway is sulking up in Stratford, and Will, banished from home and conjugal bed, finds himself struggling to make ends meet in London. The place is crawling with actors, musicians, poets and playwrights with cash flow problems, all concocting new comedies, tragedies and sonnets to win favor with Queen Elizabeth. Suffering from a bad case of writer’s block, Will is working on something called Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter, but it just won’t come alive until Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett) gives him the plot. Ms. Paltrow, splendid in what looks like Ann Miller’s wardrobe from Kiss Me Kate, is the well-bred Lady Viola, who has been promised in marriage to the insufferable Lord Wessex (Colin Firth). Viola wants passion and adventure, not a stuffy wedding, a meaningless title, or a honeymoon in Virginia.
Viola longs to try the stage, though acting in plays during Elizabeth’s cultural reign was considered depraved for a woman, so she disguises herself as a boy to audition for Will’s new play. During the farcical confusion of mistaken identities and the bawdy brawls that ensue, Will falls for this stage-struck boy in petticoats, thinking he’s a man named Thomas Kent, while Lady Viola becomes the muse—and the third act—the struggling author’s been looking for.
Warring factions of rival theaters on opposite sides of the Thames provide inspiration for the Montagues and Capulets, Will’s climb up Viola’s rosevine for a forbidden tryst becomes the famous balcony scene, and when Viola believes Will, not Marlowe, is killed in a tavern, you get the mistaken bad-news plot twist that is Juliet’s undoing. While the pieces of the play find their way to Will’s quill pen and parchment paper, the film finds time to poke fun at ham actors, artistic egos, the backstage chaos in crude Elizabethan theaters and even the cuisine of the day. "Pig’s foot marinated in juniper oil served on a buckwheat pancake," quotes the prissy tavern waiter, and you think you’re at any one of a dozen overrated, Ruth Reichl-endorsed Manhattan restaurants in the 1990’s.
Such is the wit and tongue-in-cheek irreverence that makes this clever, ambitious film seem so contemporary. When Will chases Viola across the Thames, he yells, "Follow that boat!" and the premiere of the final play is so off-the-wall, you can’t help comparing it to the opening night of Carrie or The Capeman. In a surprise finish, the day is saved by the Queen herself. After her unique portrayal of Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown, the fabulous Judi Dench tackles a completely different kind of monarch here, bringing humor and a sense of sardonic mischief to the Virgin Queen we’ve never seen before. This is the sort of royal majesty who would probably hide the latest issue of Cosmopolitan under her throne.
Among the other spirited cast members who pop in and out of the silliness, you’ll marvel at Geoffrey Rush, playing Philip Henslowe, who was the David Merrick of his day. Even Ben Affleck, as Ned Alleyn, a great Shakespearean actor, drinker and whoremonger who died of syphilis, holds his own in the classically trained cast of British stage actors. The meticulous research of director John Madden (Mrs. Brown) and the distinguished playwright Tom Stoppard adds immeasurably to the scope and visual splendor of England’s Golden Age, re-creating the two most celebrated theaters of the time, the Rose and the Curtain, as well as the markets, pubs and fairs of Shakespeare’s time. The visual contrasts between poverty and slums, and the bustling new era of urban enlightenment that made the Elizabethan Age the stuff of controversy and adventure, are artfully captured in a sprawling, sumptuous film that instructs, engages the eye and entertains simultaneously.
In the end, at the Queen’s suggestion, Will is off on his next writing assignment—something called Twelfth Night. The leading lady, don’t forget, was named Viola.