Shakespeare in Love

Released 1997
Stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck, Tom Wilkinson, Imelda Stuanton, Judi Dench
Directed by John Madden

Is this a movie or an anthology? I didn't care. I was carried along by the wit, the energy and a surprising sweetness. The movie serves as a reminder that Will Shakespeare was once a young playwright on the make, that theater in all times is as much business as show, and that "Romeo and Juliet" must have been written by a man in intimate communication with his libido.

"Shakespeare in Love" is set in late Elizabethan England. Theater in London is booming--when the theaters aren't closed, that is, by plague warnings or bad debts. Shakespeare is not as successful as the popular Marlowe, but he's a rising star, in demand by the impecunious impresario Henslowe, whose Rose Theater is in hock to a money lender, and Richard Burbage, whose Curtain Theater has Marlowe and would like to sign Shakespeare. The story is ingeniously Shakespearean in its dimensions, including high and low comedy, coincidences, masquerades, jokes about itself, topical references and entrances with screwball timing.

Summary by Roger Ebert