http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/121198shakespeare-film-review.html

December 11, 1998
By JANET MASLIN


Shakespeare meets Sherlock, and makes for pure enchantment in the
inspired conjecture behind "Shakespeare in Love." This film's
exhilarating cleverness springs from its speculation about where the
playwright might have found the beginnings of "Romeo and Juliet," but
it is not constrained by worries about literary or historical accuracy.
(So what if characters talk about Virginia tobacco plantations before
there was a Virginia?) Galvanized by the near-total absence of
biographical data, it soars freely into the realm of invention, wittily
weaving Shakespearean language and emotion into an intoxicatingly
glamorous romance. No less marvelous are its imaginings of an
Elizabethan theater fraught with the same backbiting and conniving we
enjoy today.

Tom Stoppard's mark on the jubilant screenplay, which originated as the
brainstorm of Marc Norman, harks back to the behind-the-scenes delights
of his "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." This is a world in
which a therapist times his patient with an hourglass and a souvenir
mug is inscribed "A Present From Stratford-Upon-Avon." Says the dashing
young Shakespeare, played tempestuously well by Joseph Fiennes, about
the more successful Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett): "Lovely
waistcoat. Shame about the poetry." And there is the inevitable moment
when someone asks who Shakespeare is, only to be told by a comically
obtuse producer (Geoffrey Rush): "Nobody -- that's the author."

Ingenious as the film's many inventions happen to be (from boatmen who
behave like cabbies to its equivalent of Shakespearean outtakes -- "One
Gentleman of Verona" in the writing process), it could never have had
so much energy without the right real-life Juliet to dazzle Will.
Gwyneth Paltrow, in her first great, fully realized starring
performance, makes a heroine so breathtaking that she seems utterly
plausible as the playwright's guiding light. In a film steamy enough to
start a sonnet craze, her Viola de Lesseps really does seem to warrant
the most timeless love poems, and to speak Shakespeare's own elegant
language with astonishing ease. "Shakespeare in Love" itself seems as
smitten with her as the poet is, and as alight with the same love of
language and beauty.

As directed by John Madden in much more rollicking, passionate style
than his "Mrs. Brown," "Shakespeare in Love" imagines Viola as the
perfect muse: a literate, headstrong beauty who adores the theater and
can use words like "anon" as readily as Shakespeare writes them. She
comes into his life at a pivotal moment in his career, about which the
film speculates with literary scholarship and Holmesian audacity. What
if, before making the leap from his early works to the profound
emotions of "Romeo and Juliet," he had suffered both writer's block and
a crisis in sexual confidence? ("It's as if my quill has broken," he
tells his therapist.) What if such impotence could be cured only by a
madly romantic liaison with a Juliet prototype, an unattainable woman
with a habit of speaking from her balcony?

Enter Viola, who is so eager to work in the theater that she disguises
herself as a boy, since women are forbidden to act. (Part of the film's
great fun is its way of working such Shakespearean gambits into its own
plot.) On her way to winning the role of Romeo, Viola finds herself
suddenly enmeshed with the handsome playwright himself, and the film
gives way to a heady brew of literature and ardor. In one transporting
montage, the lovers embrace passionately while rehearsing dialogue that
spills over into stage scenes, and the bond between tempestuous love
and artistic creation is illustrated beautifully. The film is as bold
in its romantic interludes as it is in historical second-guessing,
leaving Ms. Paltrow and Fiennes enmeshed in frequent half-nude,
hotblooded clinches in her boudoir.

Far richer and more deft than the other Elizabethan film in town
("Elizabeth"), this boasts a splendid, hearty cast of supporting
players. (The actors in both films, like Fiennes, do notably better
work here.) Colin Firth plays Viola's fiance as a perfect Wrong. Rush's
opportunistic producer is very funny, as is Ben Affleck's version of a
big-egoed actor, Elizabethan style. (Cast as Mercutio, he is also
hoodwinked by Will into thinking that "Mercutio" is the play's name.)
Also most amusing is Tom Wilkinson as a financier who grows stage-
struck, Jim Carter as the actor who looks silliest in a dress, Simon
Callow as the Queen's censor and Imelda Staunton as Viola's nurse. Judi
Dench's shrewd, daunting Elizabeth is one of the film's utmost treats.

So are its costumes. The designer Sandy Powell has previous credits
including "Orlando" and "The Wings of the Dove," and she deserves to be
remembered for her wonderfully inventive work this year. She
contributes extravagantly to this film's visual allure and did the same
for "Velvet Goldmine." Gear-switching that extreme is no mean feat.


Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company