Very Disappointing

Rating: 10/10 (9 October 1999)

My first thought when I heard the plot of this movie was one word: hokey. I mean, a woman dresses up as a man to be onstage and inspire Shakespeare, etc. Come on -- we've had movie characters cross-dressing to get a job from "Tootsie" to "Victor/Victoria" to "Mrs. Doubtfire." I couldn't understand how a plot like that could generate such hype. But a friend of mine assured me that it was great, so I saw it anyway. Unfortunately, my opinion of the film did not change much after I saw it.
Nothing about the plot was original. I kept waiting for a fantastic, new plot twist that would make me sit up and say "wow." It just didn't happen though. I mean, who could not watch this movie and just *know* that there would be a crisis right before the play that would threaten that (gasp!) the play might not go on? Come on. This movie wasn't all bad though. The costumes and the settings were great and very colorful, and the directing was strong. Also, the film did have some nice inside-jokes about literary characters, etc, such as the real reason why Chris Marlowe was killed, and some funny parodies of the Hollywood lifestyle, etc. But inside jokes do not a great movie make.
Now, I don't want to sound like this is a bad movie. In fact, it was a rather enjoyable way to spend two hours or so. But it simply didn't live up to the hype. My thoughts on why it won the Oscar: maybe the voters heard the English accents and fell into the usual American trap of assuming that anything with an English accent is automatically brilliant, intelligent and witty. Or, they could have heard that Tom Stoppard wrote the script and done the same thing based on his reputation as being one of the premier playwrites of our day. Perhaps Hollywood just loved the jokes on itself that were in the film and couldn't resist giving it all those Oscars. Whatever was the reason, I think it's a shame that this film took many Oscars that other films deserve. I would like to see how this movie stands up twenty years or so down the road. Which movie will ultimately be more memorable -- this pleasant, slightly above run-of-the-mill comedy, or great movies like "Saving Private Ryan," "La Vita E Bella," or "A Thin Red Line"? I think time will tell.