Hard to beat

Rating: Null/10 (23 January 2000)

Really extraordinary. Won 1998 Best Picture and deserved it but for "Saving Private Ryan," which should have gotten the nod but wow, tough call. Everything works here (that soundtrack!), but strangely enough, the best is the ending-titles scene--Viola, alone, marooned, crossing the beach of a new world, a figment of Shakespeare's imagination but no less a bitter and true allegory. Gwynneth Paltrow as Viola is a performance that goes beyond description; a fantastic and ethereal presence that is surely what secured Best Picture, and who's complaining? The critics called "Shakespeare in Love" a "must-see", and for once they were right.