The love scenes between these two are among the most erotic and lifelike I've seen on film in a very long time. The screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard is clever in its double entendres and references to other Shakespearean works, and brilliant in its energy and intelligence. The theatrical goings-on are every bit as compelling as the central love story. The booming London theater scene is presented in all its highs and lows, with wonderfully intricate details filling up the background. Theater is seriously in decline in America, mostly having been replaced by film, which can never equal the live theater.
Film is simply too expensive, too reliant on the bottom line, to achieve the same art form.
One can see a comedy, have a great time, and take something away from it. I imagine this film will likely change a great many young opinions on Shakespeare, and hopefully cast a new light on the Bard's oft-maligned library. At any rate, it is a terrific film, smart and funny and romantic, and the sort of entertainment that enables the elite to stretch their arms patting themselves on the back while the groundlings roar with laughter and weep with understanding. Shakespeare himself might have made, were he alive today.