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Created Jun 24, 2012 12:23PM PST • Edited Jun 08, 2019 08:12AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Delicious fun this Elizabethan confection, a Shakespearean extravaganza just this side of full Disnefication.

   Superior cast, especially Joseph Fiennes & Gwyneth Paltrow as Romeo & Juliet, er, Will & Viola.
   Which Will? Will Shakespeare, sometime actor, full-time rake and pageman for hire.

   Shakespeare in Love. Good title, as Will would say.

   More Shakespeare, the E! True Story than Being Shakespeare, it’s Shakespeare reduced to melodrama. Think LeBron playing High School again, literarily that is.

   Long at two hours, Shakespeare in Love makes for a really great night-in in front of the plasma.

   Soak it up now that it’s on Netflix Instant View or become fortune’s fool. Seven Oscars are rarely so cheap.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   The superior cast led by Gwyneth Paltrow’s heiress & Joseph Fiennes’ Bard includes Dame Judi Dench, Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.

   Gwyneth’s literary heroine is a superior actor, playing Shakespearean drama as a man, not an easy thing. Young and exuberant, she’s Faculty Lounge pinup material even before baring her breasts.
   Gwyneth unbound, twirling joy is a cinematic fantasy par excellence. Oops, back to the cast…

   Joseph Fiennes’ Shakespeare is more than reputable as rake, raconteur and writer.

   Dame Dench’s harridan of a Queen proves her considerable worth, as ruler and as actor.

   Colin Firth plays an aristocrat down on his luck, doing it from underneath some unfortunate facial hair.

   Geoffrey Rush has the thankless job of representing theater management.
   More than a character, he’s an archetype. The estimable Rush is up to it, of course.

   There are others:

   • Ben Affleck’s bombastic actor proved that the hunk could at least overact.
   • Imelda Staunton’s faithful chamber lady, capable of rocking her chair in-time with her mistress’s fornication.
   • Tom Wilkinson plays the Money, well.
   • Sandra Reinton’s sexy muse, or is that sex muse.
   • Martin Clunes’ Greatest Actor.
   • Simon Callow’s Master of the Revels. Don’t ask.
   • Rupert Everett as Christopher Marlowe, Kit to his friend and rival Will.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Boldly romantic, nay, undergrad romantic. OK, maybe grad school romantic. Tom Stoppard & Marc Norman’s rich screenplay comes richly to life under John Madden’s enthusiastic direction.

    Tragedy and comedy and Tinseltown: Romeo and Juliet; The Twelfth Night; Hollywood. It’s all a big entertaining stew.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    The IMDb Quotes page requires nine pokes at the Page Down key to hit bottom. Say no more.

13. Music Really Great 4.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.5

    Richly Risqué, the easy way. Highest on Sex, followed by Rudeness, with Violence the least. The easy way.

    Gwyneth Paltrow having sex with Joseph Feinnes as William Shakespeare makes the eroticism both real and literary.

17. Sex Erotic 3.0

18. Violence Fierce 2.0

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.4

    Forget high culture, Shakespeare in Love featured Ben Affleck & Gwyneth Paltrow during their idyll as a mega-media couple, before Beniffer for him and after Brad Pitt for her.

    Oh yeah, was this really Shakespeare’s life? No.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Glib 1.3

24. Physical Natural 1.0