Marvellous script, sumptuous costumes - a gem

Rating: Null/10 (26 March 2000)

Ignore the nay sayers when they talk of Oscars won out of turn, the Academy Awards have never been based on merit, instead watch the film. Paltrow's performance is moving, Dench's commanding, and while Fiennes may not be an inspired choice, that his role lacks the poise and sense of humor of Everett's Marlowe is surely deliberate! Afterall, Marlowe is considered by many the greatest playwright of his time.
It is Stoppard's writing that really deserves greatest praise, he captures the spirit of Shakespeare so well. It is intelligent, funny, romantic and believable, whereas it could so easily have been arrogant, clearly Stoppard loves the work of Shakespeare.
The in jokes (and there aren't too many) do not detract from the central story of love found and lost. So what if a London (river) taxi driver says he had Marlowe in the back of his cab once? This just plays to the stereotype of London taxi drivers, (noted on the pages of Private Eye since the 60's).
A chick flick? Perhaps, but this single male watched it on his own and am glad I did. I'll be glad to watch it in the future with a girlfriend. Unlike some chick flicks I know, there'll be something for me to watch.
BTW as for 'Virginia did not exist yet', Richard Greenville landed there with seven ships in 1585 (Zinn, 'A People's History of the United States', page 12), and there were 'several attempts by Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Ralegh (Raleigh) to plant a settlement in Virginia' before 1606, when the Virginia Company was granted a charter by King James 1. Maybe Wessex was headed for one of these failed settlements and had lost money on a previous failure? Nitpicking, perhaps, but Americans really ought to know their history.