Elizabethan entertainment

Rating: Null/10 (27 February 1999)

Shakespeare being part of Anglo-America's literary heritage, filmmakers still think it worthwhile artistically and financially to seek a new angle on Will's oeuvre despite the plethora of previous productions and relentless dissection of the plays in Eng Lit courses. This clever, colourful and well-paced film asks: who was Will the man, and what drove him to write such enduring plays for the theatre, that most ephemeral of the arts?
Well. fear, lust and survival loom large. But this Shakespeare also has a need to be heard and a need to be loved. It is London, 1593, and 29 year old Will (Joseph Fiennes), married to an older woman back in Stratford he hasn't seen for years, is desperately trying to write something to keep the doors of the South Bank theatre of his hard-pressed not to say singed friend Henslowe (Geoffery Rush) open. There's fierce competition from Burbage's Curtain Theatre across the river. Will has had some earlier success with plays about Kings with Roman numerals after their names, but Henslowe is demanding a comedy to get bums on seats. Will, however, has a severe case of writer's block and even consults a magician/apothecary, the Elizabethan equivalent of a psychoanalyst. "Fall in love," says Dr Moth (Antony Sher), giving him a magic amulet. So Will does, with the utterly unsuitable Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow), daughter of a self-made rich merchant.
Viola loves the theatre and wants to act, which is a problem, since women are forbidden the stage (boys play the younger female parts). So she dresses as a boy and auditions for a part in the still unwritten new comedy with the working title "Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter." As the relationship develops, Will's writer's block evaporates and a more familiar play emerges. History of course records that the play was a hit, but Will and Viola's fictional relationship hits heavy weather. Viola's father, anxious to improve his family's social standing, agrees to marry her off to the arrogant Earl of Wessex (Colin Firth), who needs the family money for a colonisation plan in Virginia. The final scene (Chesapeake Bay, it seems) connects England with America, and "Romeo and Juliet" with Shakespeare's next play, "Twelfth Night."
We see plenty of street life and squalor, meanness and mendacity, but also we get what can only be described as the healing power of art. Moneylenders and standover men are charmed by the power of theatre in at least temporarily suspending their business activities. The competition, in the form of Burbage (Martin Clunes, not behaving quite so badly here) comes to the rescue at a crucial point. Even Gloriana herself, Queen Elizabeth (Judi Dench), is moved by Will's story of true love.
It's not too likely that Shakespeare scholars will consider this account of the origins of "Romeo and Juliet" as plausible, but the writers, Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, have produced something fresh out of the bones of history and their version is a lot of fun. At one point, QE 1 is faced with a large puddle between her and the coach she is boarding. She looks meaningfully at the assembled nobles who, no doubt mindful of Sir Walter Raleigh's previous gallantry and subsequent preferment, start fiddling with their cloaks. But they are too slow for Gloriana, who, losing patience, strides through the puddle, muttering "too slow, too slow."
It's all pretty well done and the performances range from more than adequate to very good. Gwyneth Paltrow is not really a natural beauty (nor English) but she is both elegant and spirited as Viola (and very well dressed). When disguised (badly -only Will does not notice) as the boy actor she looks oddly like k. d. Lang and a great deal sexier. It is in this guise that Will first kisses her - a nice reference to the continuing pointless controversy over Shakespeare's sexuality. As Will, Joseph Fiennes and his big limpid eyes carry off the part of moonstruck lover well, though he is a bit young looking for 29. He is not so convincing in the "genius at work" part of the role. Colin Firth is great as the nasty Wessex (Darcy without the redeeming qualities). Judi Dench does an effective Gloriana, even though some of her lines as written lacked punch (where's the famous charm?). There are a host of other good minor players, testament to the depth of talent in English Theatre despite the lousy conditions and poor pay for most of them.
This isn't Shakespeare, and Norman and Stoppard didn't set out to emulate him, but they have produced, with John Madden's seamless directing, a fine entertainment which the Bard himself would have chuckled over. Stoppard, originally Czech and brought up largely outside Britain, has an outsider's perspective on the English language combined with a mastery of it, and this can produce a surreal effect - at times the dialogue is too self-consciously witty to be emotionally true. The whole thing may be a bit of a pastiche, but you won't notice the joins and it won't put you off Shakespeare, which is more than can be said for a lot of Eng Lit courses.