Shakespeare in Love
USA 1998
Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
London, 1593. Will Shakespeare, an ambitious young playwright, has promised his new play, Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter, to Philip Henslowe, owner of the Rose Theatre on the South Bank. But Will is blocked and the play unstarted. Henslowe is desperate: deep in debt to brutal loan shark Fennyman, he fears Will may be lured away by Richard Burbage at the Curtain Theatre across the river, favoured by Sir Edmund Tilney, Master of the Queen's Revels.
Viola De Lesseps, a rich merchant's daughter betrothed to Lord Wessex, is enchanted by Will's verse. She joins Henslowe's company disguised as a man calling herself Thomas Kent. At the same time, as herself, she embarks on a passionate affair with Will. Inspired by his love, and following hints from fellow-playwright Christopher Marlowe, Will transforms Henslowe's commission into a love story, Romeo and Juliet. The company is boosted by the arrival of star actor Ned Alleyn. 'Kent' is cast as Romeo.
Tilney, tipped off that a woman has joined Henslowe's troupe, exposes Viola and closes the theatre on grounds of immorality, but Burbage magnanimously offers the Curtain to his rival. Will takes over as Romeo, while Viola resignedly goes through with the marriage to Wessex. But after the ceremony she escapes to the theatre for the premiere, and when the lad playing Juliet gets stage fright she takes over the role. The play is rapturously received but Tilney arrives to close it down again. He is forestalled by the Queen herself, who feigns to believe Viola is a man, while making it clear she must renounce Will and sail to Virginia with Wessex. Will starts writing Twelfth Night. Viola's ship is wrecked and, sole survivor, she wanders on a strange shore.
Review
Shakespeare in Love is a hodgepodge - or, as the Elizabethans might more pungently put it, a gallimaufry and an olla podrida (rotten pot). The main plotline - well-born young woman named Viola dresses up as a boy, joins Shakespeare's troupe and has an affair with the playwright - is pinched straight from Simon and Brahms' classic comic novel No Bed for Bacon, as are some of the gags, such as Will practising multiple variants of his signature at moments of stress. ("Shakspaw, he scribbled viciously.") The stagestruck heavy is a blatant lift from Woody Allen's Bullets over Broadway, and the scene-setting pays homage to the Monty Python school of scatological reconstruction: Henslowe, striding through the London streets, treads in a heap of dung and is narrowly missed by the contents of a pisspot. We get romance, slapstick, bedroom farce, satire, jocular anachronisms ("I 'ad that Christopher Marlowe in my boat once," observes a chatty ferryman), starcrossed tragedy, a shipwreck, a full-on swashbuckled swordfight and enough sly literary allusions to sink a concordance.
Which is perfectly fine since the heterogeneous mixture, a rich but satisfying plum-pudding, works splendidly, absorbing its borrowings and negotiating its switches of mood with little sense of strain. (There's only one serious lapse, a jarring descent into Carry-On inanity when Will puts on a squeaky voice and pretends to be Viola's female cousin.) Besides, style and subject are ideally matched, since we're dealing with the greatest magpie genius of all time. Shakespeare was notoriously disinclined to devise his own plots, preferring to snaffle them from Plutarch, Holinshed or whatever dog-eared chapbook came to hand; he cared nothing for unity of mood, tossing dirty jokes into high tragedy in a way that gave the Augustans the vapours; and several of his plays (Richard II, for example) contain great chunks written by someone else. Shakespeare in Love may fall short of his exalted standard, but it's a film after his own heart.
Tom Stoppard, co-scripting, can likely be credited with some literary gags that may bypass the groundlings (a bloodthirsty small boy, given to tormenting mice, gives his name as John Webster, who later wrote the bloody play The White Devil) and some of the cod-fustian dialogue: "If you be man to ride her, there are rubies in the saddlebag." But the chief delight of Shakespeare in Love, along with its gamy exuberance, is the acting. The chemistry between Gwyneth Paltrow (after Sliding Doors, delivering yet another faultless Brit accent) and Joseph Fiennes inspires relief that the original casting (Julia Roberts and Daniel Day-Lewis) fell through. Around them cavort star turns from Imelda Staunton (born to play the nurse), Colin Firth sending up his arrogant Darcyesque image, Ben Affleck (a nostril-flaring Ned Alleyn), Judi Dench having a ball as Queen Bess, the increasingly superb Geoffrey Rush as the harassed Henslowe, and others too numerous to list. And the final triumphant premiere of Shakespeare's first true masterpiece, while edging dangerously near luvvie-ish self-regard, conveys something of what Nabokov called shamanstvo - the 'enchanter-quality' of great theatre. As Rush's Henslowe remarks, smiling beatifically as the whole shambles comes magically together, "It's a mystery."
Credits
- Producers
- David Parfitt
- Donna Gigliotti
- Harvey Weinstein
- Edward Zwick
- Marc Norman
- Screenplay
- Marc Norman
- Tom Stoppard
- Director of Photography
- Richard Greatrex
- Editor
- David Gamble
- Production Designer
- Martin Childs
- Music
- Stephen Warbeck
- ©Miramax Films/Universal Pictures
- Production Companies
- Universal Pictures presents a Bedford Falls production
- Executive Producers
- Bob Weinstein
- Julie Goldstein
- Line Producer
- Mark Cooper
- Associate Producer
- Linda Bruce
- Miramax UK Co-ordinators
- Zelda Perkins
- Iain York
- Production Co-ordinator
- Fiona Weir
- Unit Manager
- Samantha Thomas
- Location Manager
- Rachel Neale
- Post-production Co-ordinator
- Cleone Clarke
- 2nd Unit Director
- Arthur Wooster
- Assistant Directors
- Deborah Saban
- Olivia Lloyd
- Tom Gabbutt
- Toby Hefferman
- Script Supervisors
- Kim Armitage
- 2nd Unit:
- Caroline Sax
- Casting
- Michelle Guish
- US:
- Billy Hopkins
- Suzanne Smith
- Kerry Barden
- Script Editor
- Irena Brignull
- Underwater Unit Co-ordinator/Cameraman
- Mike Valentine
- Camera Operators
- Philip Sindall
- 2nd Unit:
- Tim Wooster
- Steadicam Operator
- 2nd Unit:
- Vince McGahon
- Visual Effects Supervisor
- Antony Hunt
- Digital Supervisor
- Angus Cameron
- Domino Artist
- Dan Pettipher
- Digital Matte Artist
- Max Dennison
- 2D Digital Artist
- Robin Huffer
- Digital/Optical Co-ordinator
- Andrew Jeffrey
- Digital Film Scanning
- John Grant
- Camera Operator
- Rick Mietkowski
- Special Effects Supervisor
- Stuart Brisdon
- Special Effects
- United Special Effects
- Supervising Art Director
- Mark Raggett
- Art Director
- Steve Lawrence
- Set Decorator
- Jill Quertier
- Draughtspeople
- Matt Gray
- Keith Pain
- Scenic Artist
- Steve Sallybanks
- Storyboard Artist
- Jane Clark
- Sculptor
- Fred Evans
- Costume Designer
- Sandy Powell
- Costume Supervisor
- Clare Spragge
- Make-up/Hair Design
- Lisa Westcott
- Senior Hair/Make-up Artist
- Veronica Brebner
- Titles Design
- Shaun Webb Design
- Film Opticals
- Cine Image
- Soprano Soloist
- Catherine Bott
- Conductor
- Nick Ingman
- Orchestra Leader
- Gavyn Wright
- Orchestrations
- Stephen Warbeck
- Nick Ingman
- Additional:
- James Shearman
- Music Supervisors
- Maggie Rodford
- Becky Bentham
- Music Editor
- Roy Prendergast
- Music Recordist/Mixer
- Chris Dibble
- Choreography
- Quinny Sacks
- Production Sound Mixer
- Peter Glossop
- Sound Recordist
- 2nd Unit:
- Clive Copland
- Re-recording Mixers
- Robin O'Donoghue
- Dominic Lester
- Preview:
- Ian Tapp
- Supervising Sound Editor
- John Downer
- Additional Sound Editor
- Colin Chapman
- Dialogue Editor
- Sarah Morton
- ADR
- Editor:
- Brigitte Arnold
- Foley
- Artists:
- Pauline Griffiths
- Paula Boram
- Jenny Lee Wright
- Mixer:
- Ken Somerville
- Editor:
- Howard Eaves
- Consultants
- Text:
- Russell Jackson
- Performance:
- Philip Wilson
- Verse:
- Andrew Wade
- Fight Arranger
- William Hobbs
- Horse Co-ordinator
- Debbie Kaye
- Animals
- Animals OK
- Cast
- Joseph Fiennes
- Will Shakespeare
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Viola De Lesseps
- Judi Dench
- Queen Elizabeth
- Ben Affleck
- Ned Alleyn
- Colin Firth
- Lord Wessex
- Simon Callow
- Sir Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels
- Geoffrey Rush
- Philip Henslowe
- Tom Wilkinson
- Hugh Fennyman
- Steven O'Donnell
- Lambert
- Tim McMullen
- Frees
- Steven Beard
- Makepeace, the preacher
- Antony Sher
- Doctor Moth
- Patrick Barlow
- Will Kempe
- Martin Clunes
- Richard Burbage
- Sandra Reinton
- Rosaline
- Bridget McConnel
- Georgie Glen
- ladies in waiting
- Nicholas Boulton
- Henry Condell
- Imelda Staunton
- nurse
- Desmond McNamara
- crier
- Barnaby Kay
- Nol
- Jim Carter
- Ralph Bashford
- Paul Bigley
- Peter, the stage manager
- Jason Round
- actor in tavern
- Rupert Farley
- barman
- Adam Barker
- 1st auditionee
- Joe Roberts
- John Webster
- Harry Gostelow
- 2nd auditionee
- Alan Cody
- 3rd auditionee
- Mark Williams
- Wabash
- David Curtiz
- John Hemmings
Gregor Truter- James Hemmings
- Simon Day
- 1st boatman
- Jill Baker
- Lady De Lesseps
- Amber Glossop
- scullery maid
- Robin Davies
- Master Plum
- Hywel Simons
- servant
- Nicholas Le Prevost
- Sir Robert De Lesseps
- Timothy Kightley
- Edward Pope
- Mark Saban
- Augustine Philips
- Bob Barrett
- George Bryan
- Roger Morlidge
- James Armitage
- Daniel Brocklebank
- Sam Gosse
- Roger Frost
- 2nd boatman
- Rebecca Charles
- chambermaid
- Richard Gold
- lord in waiting
- Rachel Clarke
- Lucy Speed
- Patricia Potter
- whores
- John Ramm
- Makepeace's neighbour
- Martin Neeley
- Paris/Lady Montague
- The Choir of St George's School, Windsor
- [uncredited]
- Rupert Everett
- Christopher Marlowe
- Certificate
- tbc
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- Dolby digital
- In Colour