Shakespeare in Love

Rating: ****
Date Seen: 1999-03-27

I can see why the Academy gave this movie the award for best picture. Everything in it is a celebration of all that Hollywood embodies and cherishes. The movie is a tribute to a man--an ideal--which altered people's idea of what could be expressed in a play. Namely, love.

The movie itself is also a love story. It depicts how Shakespeare might have been inspired to write "Romeo and Juliet". In this depiction, he (Joseph Feinnes) falls in love with Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is fascinated by plays, poetry, and everything about the theater. As bad luck would have it, she ends up getting engaged -- through no fault of her own -- to the nasty old Lord Wessex (Colin Firth). Meanwhile, she and Shakespeare fall in love.

Shakespeare is depicted as an energetic seat-of-the-pants type of person, rushing to hammer out scripts just before the cast rehearses them.

Well, I don't know that I would've given in best picture of the year, but it was a very good movie. Well worth seeing.