A Lord Wessex point of view.

Rating: 9/10 (20 August 1999)

It is indeed a wonderful love story, a strong script, a strong cast; it's clever, intelligent and beautifully edited.
Viola is a young and beautiful woman who falls for words and poetry, a bit like Roxanne in Cyrano de Bergerac, and as Shakespeare doesn't have a big nose, they fall in love. The big bad guy is supposed to be Lord Wessex and he could be bad I supposed if he weren't played by Colin Firth ( who delivers as always a delicate performance and gives a deep inner life to his character).
Lord Wessex is a bit like Darcy in Pride and Prejudice: no one has a good opinion of him in the audience, Darcy is proud and distant, Lord Wessex is not romantic, raw and really doesn't have a clue about women. This could be the perfect beginning for a love story... that will never happened. It is indeed a real mystery to me: How can Viola resist the first look of Lord Wessex in their first scene at the theater?
As for Joseph Fiennes he is a good Shakespeare but I wonder how better it could have been if Shakespeare In Love had been made earlier and Colin Firth had had the part of Shakespeare as planned! I must say that personally I would have prefer Lord Wessex to change throughout the movie and conquer Viola's heart, but I also prefer Colin Firth's acting to Joseph Fiennes' !!!