SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes
Rated R

Tuesday, August 10, 1999


Among its many blandishments -- pretty actors, pretty love
story, pretty costumes, pretty music -- Shakespeare in Love
seduces best with flattery. This clever and ingratiating
Oscar winner does viewers the honor of assuming a working
familiarity with Shakespearean lore. It counts on an adult
appreciation of mistaken-identity plot devices and the
Elizabethan tradition of men performing as women. And if it
doesn't demand scholarly knowledge to participate in the fun,
at least it rewards a high school diploma. It's a movie that
suggests we're smarter than we thought we were.

For all the attractions of Gwyneth Paltrow at her most long-
throated as Viola De Lesseps, the bard-in-training's lover
and muse, for all the lures of Joseph Fiennes' spaniel-eyed
gazes as the titular genius with writer's block (the actor's
fawnish mopes do nothing for me, but I'll honor anyone else's
fondness for the type), it's the language that deserves the
huzzahs. With Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard both credited as
screenwriters, I have no idea who, in hard actual fact, did
what. But there's no hiding the continental suavity and
stagecraft gym- nastics that are Stoppard's signature. One
random example: ''Stay but a little -- I will come again,''
Will urges his beloved, quoting full Shakespeare. That the
two are passionately entwined at the time makes for a hot
visual pun in a moment steamier than any in all of Eyes Wide
Shut.

Of course, ''Shakespeare in Love'' promotes not just
Shakespeare but also the whole movie and theater industry.
''Love -- and a bit with a dog, that's what they want,'' goes
one backstage quip. ''Who's that?'' ''Nobody. The author,''
goes another inside-baseball exchange. No wonder Academy
voters -- i.e., actors and directors, screenwriters and
producers -- garlanded this valentine to ye olde entertainment
biz with seven Oscars.

Besides, it's a production that seems made for the small
screen. Director John Madden is partial to snaky tracking
shots through the theater and the muddy streets of 16th-
century London, but the bulk of the love story is told in
video-ready close-ups that don't require scope. Scope, in
fact, is the crucial element missing from the film:
''Shakespeare in Love'' is an entertainment as fetching as
Elizabethan embroidery and as deep as a layer of satin on the
Queen's corset.

Grade:   B+

-- Lisa Schwarzbaum