When watching Shakespeare in Love (1998), it is best not to treat it as a historical piece.  I address this advice to anyone who thinks that when a movie looks old, it must be an accurate portrayal of the past.  To be fair, many of the people you see in it were real people, most of all, of course, William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes).  It deserves credit for those roles, as well as being generally well acted and shot.  I could do without the gratuitous nudity in it, but I am a pretty square Catholic.  At the same time, there are a number of aspects of it that do not jive with history, which further complicates my enjoyment.  Instead, it is best judged as a modern, yet set in Shakespeare’s own time, of his famous play Romeo & Juliet.  Indeed, as we shall see, this fictional version of the famous bard writes the work as the events unfold in Shakespeare in Love.  This, too, is an anachronism, but such is creative license.

Before we see Shakespeare in Love, we see the people to whom he owes his allegiance, and his pocket change.  Namely, playwright Philip Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush) is having his feet burned over hot coals by Hugh Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson) over the latter’s demand for a new piece.  It is Will, as Shakespeare is known familiarly, who is supposed to have said work, calling it “Romeo & Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter.”  This is the frantic news Philip delivers to Hugh to save his feet, and now Philip must find Will to get the required pages.  Will, though, is suffering from writer’s block.  Part of this, he claims, is his lack of a true muse.  He believes it could be Rosaline (Sandra Reinton), a woman who can be frequently seen among the theater crowd.  To this end, he gives her a trinket with his name in it that he is told will restore his faculties, in more way than one.  He is still stuck, though, when he meets his rival, Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett), in a pub, the latter offering some advice for his new work.  Yet, Will is once more shattered when he finds Rosaline being unfaithful to him.  Nonetheless, Philip decides to go ahead with the play despite it being more of a theory, giving in to pressure from Hugh, who wants a return on his investment.  As auditions move forward, none of them seem appropriate for the role of Romeo until Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) steps onto the stage.  Because this is against the law in Elizabethan England, she appears in the guise of Thomas Kent.  Will is enthralled by her lines, though she is surprised that this should be so and flees.  He follows her to a grand house which he eventually enters on the pretext of looking for Thomas.  Will sneaks into a ball taking place in the home of the family of de Lesseps, who are wealthy merchants.  During these festivities he first beholds Viola, though she had previously seen him at a royal recital.  So taken was she by him that it is part of the reason why she attempted to go out for the part of Romeo.  When they dance, it is, as these things so often go, love at first sight.  The issue with this is that Viola’s parents have already arranged for their daughter to be married to Lord Wessex (Colin Firth).  He is penniless, but with vast holdings in Virginia (which is historically impossible), and he sees a union with the de Lesseps as a business arrangement.  Though he may be approaching matrimony in a transactional manner, he still jealously guards Viola.  When he sees Will and Viola getting too close, Lord Wessex threatens to immediately murder the bard.  When asked for a name, Will says he is Christopher Marlowe and departs.  However, Will comes back later that night and he and Viola basically have the balcony scene from arguably his most famous work.  The next day, she returns to the theater as Thomas Kent, and is immediately given the role of Romeo.  Will rides back down the Thames with her and is soon overcome by his description of her to Thomas that she kisses him.  They proceed to spend the night with each other, much to the annoyance of her nurse (Imelda Staunton).  This is not just because of the indiscretion, though she is happy to help cover it up, but also because of Viola’s betrothal to Lord Wessex.  Will is not keen on this last bit either, and secretly goes with her to the court of Queen Elizabeth I (Judi Dench) for the confirmation of the planned wedding.  The shrewd queen wonders whether there are actual feelings between Lord Wessex and Viola, and proposes a wager if anyone is out there that can prove it.  Will surreptitiously proposes a sum of £50, already knowing that he is in the process of developing Romeo & Juliet.  Elizabeth makes a more private observation to Lord Wessex, claiming that Viola is not a virgin.  He believes it is Christopher Marlowe who is carrying on with his fiancée.  This is a more potential threat to their bliss.  A more real one comes when Viola finds out that Will has a wife and children back in his home town, though he claims they are separated.  She runs off on the same night that Will learns that Christopher has been killed.  The death turns out to have been the result of a tavern brawl, but Will blames himself for it.  Though they manage to emotionally get over this, Viola feels it is her duty to marry Lord Wessex.  Besides, her acting career is ended when a street urchin spies her and Will making love and reports her for being a woman on stage.  The show must go on, and so it does on her wedding day.  It might have been a momentous occasion, but she finds a way to escape when it is over and make it to the theater in time to stand-in for the actor slated to play Juliet, which is convenient for Will’s Romeo.  Before anything bad can happen, the queen reveals herself to have been in the audience, and afterwards metes out the kind of royal justice that is her privilege.  It is not enough, though, to keep Viola from leaving with Lord Wessex.  Before she departs, she says that Will must continue writing, and it ends with him penning Twelfth Night.

Despite the anachronisms and nudity in Shakespeare in Love, my Catholic heart was warmed by a few parts.  I appreciated when, in a moment of desperation, Will is pictured kneeling before an altar and praying for guidance.  What he should have been praying for is prudence.  I will give the film credit once more for making clear the star-crossed nature of the romance between Viola and Will.  Viola is the more level-headed of the two, though no less passionate, saying that what they are experiencing is like a dream.  What I question is whether it is true love.  Modern society does not have a clear definition of this concept.  Indeed, what you see go on between the two is probably closer to what most non-Christians would recognize as love, which might explain its popularity.  What these two so-called lovers give into is lust.  It is all fun and games for the few days in which it lasts, but it is not meant to be.  In Will’s more sober moments, he must admit to this reality.  To most viewers of this, they see him and Viola tumbling through the bed sheets and think that is romance.  I prefer a more Catholic definition, one that takes into account the eternal.  When the Bible talks about love, it always has God as its source.  Everything, and I do mean that in the all-encompassing sense of the term, springs from God’s love.  It is why we are born, and why we die.  This last bit is usually the hardest for most to understand, which accounts for a lot of anger towards God.  True faith, which is more akin to true love than whatever you see in this movie, is about letting go of our desire to know God’s plans for us, be it in relation to who we fall in love with, or who we let cross the Atlantic Ocean to Virginia.

In looking up information about Shakespeare in Love, I noticed that it beat out Saving Private Ryan (1998) at the Academy Awards in 1998.  This was apparently controversial, and if you are familiar with the World War II epic, you can probably understand why.  Again, this is not meant to be a slight to Shakespeare in Love.  Nudity aside, it is a fair movie.  I would still recommend Saving Private Ryan over it.