It is a romantic film that embodies a different love story led by Viola de Lesseps and playwright William Shakespeare. Shakespeare may be experiencing his romantic experience, which inspires him to write one of his most famous plays: Romeo and Juliet.
It restores to centrality of consciousness one of the great geniuses of our civilization. It makes us care for his greatness, for his passion, for his worth. In no uncertain terms, it tells us Willie Boy is still here.
There's so much to like about this film, which is giddily romantic, funny and clever, chock-full of Shakespearean touches like doomed love, mistaken identity and men dressing as women and women dressing as men.
Scene after scene engages us as cheerful groundlings, tosses us jokes, toys with our expectations, then sweeps away the boundaries between film and stage, comedy and tragedy so we're open to the power of language and the feelings behind it.
Sometimes it's the small things that provide the biggest delights. That's certainly the case with Shakespeare in Love, a tongue-in-cheek romance about the greatest romance ever written.
