A funny thing happened on the way to the Globe

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.

By STEVE PERSALL

c St. Petersburg Times, published December 25, 1998


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.

Shakespeare in Love
Grade: A
Director: John Madde
Screenplay: Marc Norman, Tom Stoppar

Rating: R; sexual situations, nudity, violence, profanity

Running time: 123 min.