Overrated

Rating: 5/10 (4 February 2000)

When I first heard about this movie I was very excited because I'm a huge fan of playwright Tom Stoppard, who co-wrote the script. Also, it had a great premise: Shakespeare, at the beginning of his career, looking for that first big hit to really establish his name, is at work on his new play "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter." He falls deeply in love/lust with Viola de Lesseps, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, and is motivated to write "Romeo and Juliet."
As actually executed though, the film is. . . well, ok, but not nearly as good as it could have been and just waaaaaay overrated. First of all, Shakespeare as portrayed here is just a simp, all pointless motion and hot-blooded excitement - seemingly interested in scoring women and very little else. There's no suggestion of the eloquence, the wit, or the sheer patience and craft that he would need if he was going to become what he did. In the role, Joseph Fiennes is a complete blank. This seriously undermines the film from the start: we don't have to see the guy being a genius (after all, this IS supposed to be early in his career) but if we don't at least get a glimpse of the potential, we can't really buy it as Shakespeare - and the whole movie simply devolves into Hollywood actors running around with funny costumes on. (In only about five minutes of screen time, Rupert Everett, as Christopher Marlowe, completely blows Fiennes away in terms of poise, presence and sense of humor - I think he probably would have made a much better Shakespeare.)
All the other performances are fairly strong, causing Fiennes to further stick out like a sore thumb. Nowhere is this as true as with Gwyneth Paltrow. Since the Oscars, there's been a big backlash against her and her performance here (especially at this site) but COME ON, people! - this movie is unthinkable without her! I speak as someone who'd never been all that impressed with her (she was pretty enough, I thought, but as an actress a little bland) but after I saw her in this I became a believer. She has such a grace here, a presence that we don't normally associate with actresses anymore - you'd have to go back to the days of Grace Kelly or Ingrid Bergman to find a proper parallel. Absolutely enchanting - which is essential, because we must buy her as the muse to no less an artist than Shakespeare. I guess what I have to ask is, for all those people who didn't like Paltrow and yet liked the movie - well, what exactly did you LIKE about it?
The script, I'm sure they'll say. But if your two lead characters sink like a stone then exactly how good could you consider the script to be? In any case, I think there's been too much said about this damn script - as if the real story wasn't meant to be about Will and Violet (which doesn't play convincingly), but about all those sly little jokes that the writers sneak into the margins of the screen. They're not even that funny. The more Shakespeare you know, of course, the more of them you'll likely get, but that still doesn't mean you'll laugh; I got several of them, and the most that ever happened was, I said "Oh yeah, I get that - I understand what they're referencing." It makes you feel intelligent, maybe, but it doesn't give you any enjoyment. The film tries to be too "smart" when at its heart it's just a dumb love story. Perhaps Stoppard was actually the wrong guy for this project - he's too intelligent (anyone who doesn't agree, just check out any of his wonderful plays - like "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," "Travesties," "Arcadia," "The Real Inspector Hound" or any of over two dozen others). The guys behind "Airplane" or "The Naked Gun" would have been a much better choice. If they'd written it, this film might actually have been FUNNY. Dumb, certainly, but funny. As it is, this film walks a tightrope between silliness and profundity, never firmly registering in either, so never being really satisfying on any level.
It has its moments, and the radiant Gwyneth of course (as well as Judi Dench as a wonderful Queen Elizabeth; she absolutely stops the film whenever she appears which, alas, is not nearly enough) but it's more of a disappointment than a treat.