A seamless integration of witty comedy & romantic drama

Rating: 6/10 (24 January 1999)

"Shakespeare in Love" is a truly witty comedy, which integrates seamlessly the romantic & creative travails of young Will S. with the ongoing plot that "Romeo & Juliet" started out life as "Romeo & Ethel the Pirate's Daughter - a Comedie". What a refreshingly original premise.
Both Gwynneth Paltrow & Jo Fiennes (ie Ralph's brother, whom I now understand is more properly to be pron. as "Rafe") work well together, and the romance is engaging without being cloying - accepting the fact that Elizabethan prose was somewhat purple in comparison with today's patois (a noticeable absence of expletives! Which I'm sure _isn't_ realistic). The rest of the cast is excellent, even when they are only there for an instant - the great stage Shakespearean actor, Anthony Sher, for e.g. Geoffrey Rush is hilarious as a bumbling & dangerously debt laden theatre owner; while Dame Judi Dench make a sharp-witted & perspicacious Elizabeth I (scary makeup!); the only person who looks anachronistic is Ben Affleck, his Pommie (English) accent is acceptable, BUT, his square-jawed visage just looks way too modern & _Yank_ for him to be extant in the late 1500s - his teeth are too perfect! But then, maybe that's me imposing my constructed view from seeing Ben in other flicks.
Tom Stoppard's script is light & brilliantly interwoven to the rich material that Shakespeare offers. I'm sure you'll recall some of Tom's lines after the event, despite the towering offerings from the Bard.
Last, the costumes & sets are splendidly periodical - the last right down to the throwing out of the window of the night's ordure: you had to keep your eyes about you in Elizabethan Englande to avoid the joys of such hazards.
9/10