Shakespeare in Love was showered with praise and awards at the Oscars in 1999, beating Saving Private Ryan no less to the Best Picture prize. The story follows Joseph Fiennes as The Bard himself, a struggling writer in 16th century London with a proto-script for a love story called "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter". Real life actors and writers from Shakespeare's era abound as The Bard slowly refines his story into Romeo and Juliet. Eventually the film conspires to have Shakespeare play Romeo and his secret love Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) play Juliet on stage. A woman on stage? In the 16th century? The scandal!
There is a huge amount here to love if you're into your Shakespeare. Even someone with vague knowledge of his plays will appreciate the parallels with Romeo and Juliet, but anyone with a greater knowledge will pick up on the many references to not only Shakespeare's contemporaries, but also events, characters and entire scenes from the plays themselves. There are three consecutive scenes where Shakespeare tries to meet Viola that exactly parallel the opening scenes of Romeo and Juliet. Of course I didn't realise this as I was watching and I expect few regular punters would either, but it's clever attention to detail that demonstrates the love the film's writers have for Shakespeare's plays.
The film is a who's who of British famous faces from the late 1990s, and there are a lot of laughs where the ensemble are used to poke fun at theatre productions in general. In particular Ben Affleck puts on an enjoyable performance as the over-achieving try-hard actor who has to be gently coaxed into accepting a non-lead role. Everyone who has ever done theatre will know this person. Praise must also be given for the way the film depicts with reasonable accuracy the creative process of theatre troupes in Shakespeare's days. The writing of productions was a collaborative process. Boys played the parts of women on stage. Scripts were written and edited as rehearsals progressed. People really can watch Shakespeare in Love and learn about how theatre worked 400 years ago.
The major issue the film has is that it suffers from an extremely unsatisfying Deux Ex Machina ending. The drama peaks as the production of Romeo and Juliet reaches its conclusion, Viola's performance has the crowd captivated and we wait to find out what will happen between her and Lord Wessex. Will the tale of true love on the stage sway Wessex to end his pursuit of Viola? Will Viola's stunning performance convince the crowd that yes in fact women can be actors? No. Instead of any of that, Queen Elizabeth (played by who else but Judi Dench) turns up and tells everyone what they have to do. And of course they have to do it cos she's the queen. The end.
Way to undercut your drama.
Because of this I was unsurprised to hear that the script had originally been rejected and received heavy re-writes before going into production. There's a moment early on when it looks like the driving force for the plot will be Shakespeare not knowing that the Viola he meets at the mansion in London is the same person as the 'man' playing Romeo in his theatre. But they reveal their true selves almost immediately - no drama there. So you need something else to drive the plot. And the something else never concretely materialises. Ultimately the film is enjoyable enough, but because of its final 10 minutes it feels like half a story without a real conclusion. Yes of course it is extremely clever to allude to the plot of Twelfth Night arising from Viola's departure to the new world, but 'extremely clever' doesn't make for a satisfying end to a love story.
