Our final reflection on movies based around the story of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, takes a slightly different tack. Here, scenes from the play are being rehearsed as part of the drama surrounding the meeting of the Bard and Viola De Lesseps. Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 romantic period comedy drama film directed by John Madden and, written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck and Judi Dench. Shakespeare in Love received acclaim from critics and was a box office success. The film received numerous accolades, including seven Oscars.
In 1593 London, William Shakespeare is a sometime player in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and playwright for Philip Henslowe, owner of The Rose Theatre. Suffering from writer’s block with a new comedy, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter, Shakespeare attempts to seduce Rosaline, mistress of Richard Burbage, owner of the rival Curtain Theatre, and to convince Burbage to buy the play from Henslowe. Shakespeare receives advice from rival playwright Christopher Marlowe, but is despondent to learn Rosaline is sleeping with Master of the Revels, Edmund Tilney. The desperate Henslowe, in debt to ruthless moneylender Fennyman, begins auditions anyway.
Viola de Lesseps, daughter of a wealthy merchant, who has seen Shakespeare’s plays at court, disguises herself as a man named Thomas Kent to audition. Kent gains Shakespeare’s interest with a speech from Two Gentlemen of Verona, but runs away when Shakespeare questions her. He pursues Kent to Viola’s house and leaves a note with her nurse, asking Kent to begin rehearsals at the Rose. Shakespeare sneaks into a ball at the house, where Viola’s parents arrange her betrothal to Lord Wessex, an aristocrat in need of money. Dancing with Viola, Shakespeare is struck speechless. Confronted by Wessex, Shakespeare introduces himself as Christopher Marlowe. Wessex ejects “Marlowe” and threatens to kill him. Shakespeare finds Viola on her balcony, where they confess their mutual attraction before he is discovered by her nurse and flees.
Inspired by Viola, Shakespeare quickly transforms the play into what will become Romeo and Juliet. Rehearsals begin, with Thomas Kent as Romeo, the leading tragedian Ned Alleyn as Mercutio, and the stagestruck Fennyman in a small role. Shakespeare discovers Viola’s true identity, and they begin a secret affair. Viola is summoned to court to receive approval for her proposed marriage to Wessex. Shakespeare accompanies her, disguised as her nurse’s female cousin, and anonymously persuades Wessex in public to wager £50 that a play can capture the true nature of love, the amount Shakespeare requires to buy a share in the Chamberlain’s Men. Queen Elizabeth I declares that she will judge the matter.
Burbage learns Shakespeare has seduced Rosaline and cheated him out of payment for the play, and starts a brawl at the Rose with his company. The Rose players repel Burbage and his men and celebrate at the pub, where a drunken Henslowe lets slip to Viola that Shakespeare is married, albeit separated from his wife. News arrives that Marlowe has been murdered. A guilt-ridden Shakespeare assumes Wessex had Marlowe killed, believing him to be Viola’s lover, while Viola believes Shakespeare to be the victim. Shakespeare appears at her church, allaying Viola’s fears and terrifying Wessex, who believes he is a ghost. Viola confesses her love for Shakespeare, but both recognize she cannot escape her duty to marry Wessex.
John Webster, an unpleasant boy who hangs around the theatre, spies on Shakespeare and Viola making love and informs Tilney, who closes the Rose for breaking the ban on women actors. Viola’s identity is exposed, leaving Shakespeare without a stage or a lead actor, until Burbage offers his theatre and the heartbroken Shakespeare takes the role of Romeo. Following her wedding, Viola learns the play will be performed that day, and runs away to the Curtain. She overhears that the boy playing Juliet cannot perform, his voice having broken, and Henslowe asks her to replace him. She plays Juliet to Shakespeare’s Romeo to an enthralled audience.
Just after the play has concluded, Tilney arrives to arrest everyone for indecency due to Viola’s presence, but the Queen reveals herself in attendance and restrains him, pretending that Kent is a man with a “remarkable resemblance” to a woman. Powerless to end a lawful marriage, she orders Viola to sail with Wessex to Virginia. The Queen also tells Wessex, who followed Viola to the theatre, that Romeo and Juliet has won the bet for Shakespeare, and has Kent deliver his £50 with instructions to write something “a little more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night”. Viola and Shakespeare say their goodbyes, and he vows to immortalize her, as he imagines the beginning of Twelfth Night, in character as a castaway disguised as a man after a voyage to a strange land.
