Shakespeare in Love

4.50
    Shakespeare in Love
    1998

    Synopsis

    Young Shakespeare is forced to stage his latest comedy, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter," before it's even written. When a lovely noblewoman auditions for a role, they fall into forbidden love -- and his play finds a new life (and title). As their relationship progresses, Shakespeare's comedy soon transforms into tragedy.

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    Cast

    • Joseph FiennesWill Shakespeare
    • Gwyneth PaltrowViola De Lesseps
    • Geoffrey RushPhilip Henslowe
    • Tom WilkinsonHugh Fennyman
    • Judi DenchQueen Elizabeth
    • Imelda StauntonNurse
    • Colin FirthLord Wessex
    • Ben AffleckNed Alleyn
    • Simon CallowTilney
    • Steven BeardMakepeace

    Recommendations

    • 100

      Chicago Sun-Times

      I was carried along by the wit, the energy and a surprising sweetness.
    • 100

      The New Republic

      With most historical films the informed viewer scrutinizes in order to cluck at errors. (There are books full of such cluckings.) With Shakespeare in Love, the more one knows, the more one can enjoy the liberties taken. [Jan. 4, 1999]
    • 100

      Entertainment Weekly

      The richest and most satisfying romantic movie of the year. It's really about two great loves at once -- the love of life and of art -- and the way that Shakespeare, like no writer before him, transformed the one into the other.
    • 90

      Variety

      Exquisitely acted, tightly directed and impressively assembled.
    • 90

      Chicago Reader

      It's easy to suspend disbelief and embrace this historically creative fiction, whose clever relationship to what's known and what's unresolved is part of what makes it so intriguing and so romantic.
    • 90

      Mr. Showbiz

      The result is a film that is as witty, astute, and romantic as its timeless subject.
    • 88

      USA Today

      Accessibly brainy screen charmer.
    • 80

      Dallas Observer

      These filmmakers have taken a historical figure and made him into a hot-blooded romantic hero. Shakespeare did that a time or two himself.

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