Shakespeare in Love :

Uproariously uplifting!

Charmaine Fernando

The famed 123 minute American movie on the all time classic poet and playwright William Shakespeare was screened recently at the American Centre, just 13 years after it was first released. It is filled with breathtaking romance, witty one-liners, and an astuteness that is more devilish than sacrosanct. Indeed, it is one of the most effervescent and amorous comedies of the '90s that not only won hearts and audience accolades but Oscars to boot. Calling it irresistible would simply not be doing it justice. Rather, it lifts one's spirits to a higher realm of creative innovation, wittily spinning Shakespearean mastery of the language with a combination of sensitivity into an intoxicating romance

The film's ingenuity springs from the speculation about how creatively the playwright opts for a touch of 'Romeo and Juliet,' for its beginning, and is yet delightfully devoid of any inhibitions about its accuracy to literary or historical detail. It is a ravishing romance where the beautiful Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) disguises herself as a young man to coax herself into an audition in the all-male cast and strikes an apt climax winning both the part of Romeo and, after much misunderstanding, the heart of the playwright.

Richard Burbage envisioned a big picture overview, summing up the satirical brilliance of the film in a witty statement; "The Master of the Revels despises us all for vagrants and peddlers of bombast. But my father, James Burbage, had the first license to make a company of players from Her Majesty, and he drew from poets the literature of the age. We must show them that we are men of parts. Will Shakespeare has a play. I have a theatre. The curtain is yours."

The hilarious screenplay by Marc Norman takes a dash back to the behind-the-scenes 'gems' of the Bard, played astonishingly well by Joseph Fiennes, who ditches a crisp rancour over to the more successful Christopher Marlowe (Rupert Everett): ''Lovely waistcoat. Shame about the poetry.'' In an inevitable moment when someone asks who Shakespeare is, only to be told by a comic producer (Geoffrey Rush): ''Nobody. That's the author.''

There are other awe-inspiring unforgettable cues, such as the therapist timing his patient's pulse with an hourglass! ''A Present From Stratford-Upon-Avon" advertises a souvenir mug! They all have the cool suavity to lampoon and amazingly reveal the social setting with subtle skill while also having the knack to coat mirth and satire with splendid originality while inexplicably being able to get away with it with delicate élan.

The talented Gwyneth Paltrow, in her debut starring performance, portrays a heroine with breathtaking credibility. "She seems utterly credible as the playwright's guiding light," notes a film critic of repute about her star performance in the film when it was first screened to enthralling audiences. She as Viola de Lesseps emphatically does seem to speak Shakespeare's own elegant language with astonishing ease setting the poet on fire with the love of language and beauty. She, a literate, headstrong beauty who adores the theatre and can use words like ''anon'' as readily as Shakespeare writes them comes into his life at a crucial moment in his career.

Viola, who is anxious to secure a place in the play disguises herself as a boy, since women are forbidden to act.

Attempting to grab a role in the drama, she is thrilled to be picked to play the lead as Romeo. Suddenly, Viola finds herself entangled with Shakespeare himself and the film exploits its wiles into a heady concoction of literature and romance.

In one moving episode the lovers are seen in a passionate embrace while rehearsing dialogue. The fine line between stormy passion and artistic creation is mellifluously harmonized. As much as it does historical second-guessing, the film boldly blends in romantic interludes to heighten spirits. All in all, the flow of the story explodes into frequent steamy, hot-blooded semi-nude clinches by Paltrow and Fiennes, in her boudoir, inducing the censor into decisive controversy as whether to 'slash or not to slash'. For the record it was labelled a definite 'adults only' with a PS: "17 year olds accompanied by adults' to meet standards of decorum."

The film boasts a splendid cast of supporting players, among whom Colin Firth stands out playing Viola's fiance as a perfect Mr Wrong. Judi Dench's portrayal of the shrewd and calculating Elizabeth provides one of the film's hilarious treats. Creatively fashioned to fit personality and situation the costumes speak for themselves as eloquently as the playwright's superlative one-liners. The designer Sandy Powell deserves to be remembered for her wonderfully inventive work contributing extravagantly to this film's visual allure and magic

which includes nudity, bawdy humour and torrid sexual episodes. Soon enough, Will's pirate comedy becomes the beautiful, tragic 'Romeo and Juliet', reflecting the agony and ecstasy of Will and Viola's romance - he's married and she's set to marry the slimy Lord Wessex (Colin Firth) in the near future. In all, it has the charm to hold the audiences spellbound when and wherever it had the good opportunity to share the love story of the one-of-a -kind man of words from Stratford-Upon-Avon.