Miramax, Rated R
Directed by John Madden
Written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard
It's the Elizabethan era (not unlike every other movie nominated for an Oscar). William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is having a problem working on his latest play, "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter." If he doesn't finish the play, he will be seriously in debt. At an audition, a young actor shows up for the part of Romeo and Shakespeare is entranced. The actor, he finds out a while later, is a beautiful woman named Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) whom Shakespeare fell in love with earlier. However, Viola is promised to marry another and they continue disguising Viola's identity in the play, risking everything.
For a movie that has the best chance of upsetting Saving Private Ryan at the Oscars (tonight as I am writing this), the plot is paper-thin. But the execution is fantastic. All the performances range from good to magnificent, Judi Dench being the best of them all as Queen Elizabeth. Still, her appearance amounts to little more than an eight-minute cameo and I really don't think she should win the Best Suppporting Actress Oscar. Paltrow, who is favored for Best Actress, has probably her best performance to date but it is still not as good as Blanchett's in Elizabeth. Her character is not nearly as challenging and one must really suspend disbelief to buy that anyone believed her to be a man. Geoffrey Rush, up for Best Supporting Actor, pulls off a great comedic performance, but this isn't quite as good as his performance in Elizabeth. Fiennes carries the role of Shakespeare quite well, but one wonders how this man got to be so famous after seeing just how flawed he was. His genius is never really convincingly shown. I suppose the film is trying to tell us that genius needs help, since almost every idea he has comes from someone else. Still, the script is witty (but nowhere near as "original" as The Truman Show) and it is certainly a very entertaining two hours. But Best Picture material? Not quite. I do believe, however, it will have a place in my top 10 of 1999 (being widely released this year). The last question to ask is, why more Oscar nominations than Saving Private Ryan, a movie that will be remembered generations after this one is forgotten? It's a mystery. *** 1/2
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