An elaborate display of English aristocracy in culture

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2013)

A modern day wake up call as to why London's theater actors are so much in demand in Beverly Hills when it comes to making movies portraying medieval characters and societal values back then. Be it the Victorian era of life or starting right from the dark ages proceeding towards the Crusades and henceforth to the medieval renaissance period, there are very few actors who can carry off with poise the pedantic mannerisms and speech modulations which characters across all stratas of society used to exhibit. This motion picture is star studded if you may, with Gwyneth Paltrow playing the love interest of the protagonist called William Shakespeare played by Joseph Fiennes. The reason I call this star studded is because the cast consists of rigorously trained actors who have done theater for numerous number of years and are most adept at handling this play kind of movie with poetic justice. Here, Shakespeare is given a satirical image with incidents connected to his life being fabricated and his character in itself being a figment of one's imagination. He is vividly portrayed as a river "bankside" poet who has had the audacity to fall in love with Viola de Lesseps(Paltrow), a higher class woman who was to be married off to Lord Wessex(Firth) an upper class nobility, under the direction of the Queen herself, played by Judi Dench.
The extravaganza starts in London set at 1593, where in the glory days of Elizabethan theater only two playhouses were fighting it out for writers and audiences. One was the famous Curtain Theatre boasting London's most famous actor Richard Burbage, where across from the river(Thames), were giving them competition a theater overridden with cash flow problems and debts run by Philip Henslowe(Rush). The whole movie revolves around how Lady viola is passionate about stage acting but was debarred from doing so, being a lady. In those days acting was considered to be a disrespectful profession and hence women were not allowed to act. She meets Will at a gathering and they both become smitten by each other's charm. The lady falls for Will because of his skills extraordinaire, the beauty of recitals in his plays. She even disguises herself as a boy to play the role of Mr. Kent in one of Will's plays, Romeo & Juliet being organised by the Henslowe theater. But in the mix of events a suspicious and misconstruing Wessex tries to assassinate William. That Viola is secretly going to rehearsals on top of having an illicit affair is also discovered by them, and she is barred from doing so and Henslowe's theater is shut down on ultimatum from the Queen. She is forced to come to the New World by Wessex to his plantations in Virginia. But on the day of the event Viola escapes and arrives at the place where the play "Romeo & Juliet" is now being staged by the Curtain Theatre. In the pandemonium that ensues, it turns out that in the end Will takes up the role of Romeo and Viola that of Juliet, and together they produce a heart rending spectacle, reducing the crowd to tears, the crowd which includes The Queen itself, the royal patron. All is forgiven and the movie ends in a tearful separation between the souls amidst poetry rendered in suspended animation.