Shakespeare in Love

"Shakespeare in Love" is a witless, humorless romantic comedy masquerading as high art. It's the child who wishes to look pretty, so she climbs up mommy's dresser, finds her makeup and then graffitis her face without knowing any better. The academy has made many gross errors in their choice for best picture in the past, but this is one of the greatest tragedies, especially when you realize that it defeated "Saving Private Ryan," perhaps the best war epic ever filmed. This is the type of movie that I loathe, one that convinces twits that they actually learned something about history or literature after leaving the theater. In reality, they probably could have learned just as much from "Shakespeare: Kraken Hunter" or "Shakespeare on Ice." Those two films would have been welcome replacements.   

The movie has many offensive and ridiculous transgressions that make it horrible, but the one that most irks me is the soulless way in which the film is directed. John Madden, the director, who has nothing close to a good movie in his filmography, created a dull, listless, and colorless world which is filled with cliches of both Shakespearean England and the present. The costumes of nearly everyone look completely fake and rise to the level of a high school production desperate for homemade creations because the funding for the arts has just been cut. Another egregious offense is how the film presents William Shakespeare, who is half rock star and half 90210 heartthrob. His Luke Perry vest and Keith Richards shirt remains inexplicably agape, even though no one else seems to dress so ridiculously, unless, of course, they are playing a pirate on stage. Lastly, the sets look as though they were borrowed from Medieval Times, complete with large stone buildings that look like they could be blown over by a moderate afternoon gust.    

The film wastes the talents of actors like Geoffrey Rush, who plays the most stereotypical medieval English man in the history of film. His teeth are so disgusting that he morphs in and out of being some sort of rabbit. Colin Firth, as usual, plays a stern, emotionless British aristocrat whose face is actually a form of sedimentary rock. Gwyneth Paltrow does admittedly give a good performance as Shakespeare's love interest, but it is toward no higher good. And then there's Judy Dench who looks like she is playing dress up in the attic. Finally, no terrible movie in the late nineties would be complete without Ben Affleck careening around the screen without any idea what he is doing, depending totally on what he thinks is swagger in his own head. His performance is reminiscent of the times in high school English class when the teacher would assign the brainless jock to perform the part of Julius Caesar or Macbeth out loud. Indeed, the rumor that Affleck lost weight for the role is very true, though most of it dropped from his cerebrum.   

It is not so much that the dialogue of the movie is terrible as it is the performance of it, complete with accents that are so bad and over the top that it creates a nexus of comical, amateurish embarrassment that hovers over the entire film. Speaking to the plot, what purpose does it serve? It's certainly not historically accurate----if the creation of "Romeo and Juliet" was, in fact, created as a mirror image of Shakespeare's own life, then maybe they would have had an interesting story. But what does this fictional adaptation of Shakespeare's life tell us about him? Or his artistry? Or England? Or Love? This movie is totally without purpose, an invention with no use, a ghost with no unfinished business. One has to posit that the copious amount of topless scenes with Gwyneth Paltrow serve only to keep audiences in their seats distracted from the rest of the film, hoping only for another lascivious peek.

"Shakespeare in Love" is the best argument that exists for a mechanism by which the academy can take back awards after they are proven to be shortsighted and misplaced. Give the damn statue to "Saving Private Ryan" where it belongs.