Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 romantic comedy set in the past. It was directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard. The film features actors Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck, and Judi Dench. The story follows a made-up love story between William Shakespeare (played by Fiennes) and Viola de Lesseps (played by Paltrow) while Shakespeare writes Romeo and Juliet. Some characters are based on real people, and the film includes references to Shakespeare’s plays.
The movie was released in the United States on December 11, 1998, by Miramax Films, and in the United Kingdom on January 29, 1999, by Universal Pictures. Critics praised the film, and it earned $289 million, even though it cost only $25 million to make. It was the ninth most successful movie of 1998. The film won many awards, including three Golden Globe Awards (Best Picture and Best Actress for Paltrow), two Screen Actors Guild Awards (Outstanding Cast and Best Actress for Paltrow), and four British Academy Film Awards (Best Film). At the 71st Academy Awards, it won seven Oscars out of thirteen nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Paltrow, Best Supporting Actress for Dench, Best Screenplay, Best Score, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design.
Plot
In 1593, William Shakespeare is an occasional member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company, and a playwright for Philip Henslowe, who owns The Rose theatre. Shakespeare is struggling to write a new comedy called Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. He tries to persuade Rosaline, the wife of Richard Burbage, who owns the rival Curtain Theatre, to buy the play from Henslowe. Shakespeare also attempts to win Rosaline's favor. He seeks advice from Christopher Marlowe, a friend and rival playwright, but learns that Rosaline is involved with Edmund Tilney, the Master of the Revels. Henslowe, who is in debt to a harsh moneylender named Fennyman, begins auditions for the play despite his financial troubles.
Viola de Lesseps, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, has seen Shakespeare's plays at court. She disguises herself as a man named Thomas Kent to audition for the role of Romeo. Kent impresses Shakespeare with a speech from The Two Gentlemen of Verona but flees when questioned. Shakespeare follows Kent to Viola's home and leaves a note with her nurse, asking Kent to begin rehearsals at The Rose. Shakespeare sneaks into a ball at Viola's house, where her parents arrange her betrothal to Lord Wessex, a wealthy aristocrat. During the ball, Shakespeare dances with Viola and becomes speechless. When confronted by Wessex, Shakespeare introduces himself as Christopher Marlowe. Wessex expels "Marlowe" and threatens him. Later, Shakespeare finds Viola on her balcony, where they confess their mutual feelings before he is discovered and flees.
Inspired by Viola, Shakespeare quickly rewrites the play into Romeo and Juliet. Rehearsals begin, with Thomas Kent as Romeo, Ned Alleyn as Mercutio, and Fennyman in a minor role. After discovering Viola's true identity, Shakespeare and Viola begin a secret relationship.
Viola is summoned to court to receive approval for her planned marriage to Wessex. Shakespeare accompanies her, disguised as her nurse's female cousin, and anonymously convinces Wessex to wager £50 that a play can capture the true nature of love, the amount Shakespeare needs to buy a share in the Chamberlain's Men. Queen Elizabeth I agrees to judge the matter.
Burbage learns that Shakespeare seduced Rosaline and tricked him out of payment for the play. He starts a fight at The Rose with his company. The Rose players defeat Burbage's group and celebrate at a pub, where a drunk Henslowe tells Viola that Shakespeare is married, though separated from his wife. News arrives that Marlowe has been murdered. Shakespeare, feeling guilty, believes Wessex killed Marlowe, thinking Wessex is Viola's lover. Viola, however, believes Shakespeare is the victim. Shakespeare appears at her church, calming Viola's fears and frightening Wessex, who thinks he is a ghost. Viola confesses her love for Shakespeare, but both know she must marry Wessex.
John Webster, a boy who hangs around the theatre, spies on Shakespeare and Viola and tells Tilney, who closes The Rose for breaking the rule against women acting. Viola's identity is revealed, leaving Shakespeare without a stage or lead actor. Burbage offers his theatre, and the heartbroken Shakespeare takes the role of Romeo. After Viola's wedding, she learns the play will be performed that day and runs to the Curtain Theatre. She overhears that the boy playing Juliet cannot perform, as his voice has changed, and Henslowe asks her to replace him. Viola plays Juliet to Shakespeare's Romeo, captivating the audience.
After the play ends, Tilney arrives to arrest everyone for indecency because of Viola's presence. Queen Elizabeth I, who is in attendance, stops Tilney, pretending that Kent is a man who looks like a woman. Unable to stop a lawful marriage, the Queen orders Viola to sail with Wessex to Virginia. She also tells Wessex, whom Webster reveals has followed Viola to the theatre, that Romeo and Juliet has won the bet for Shakespeare. She instructs Kent to deliver £50 to Shakespeare with a note to write "something more cheerful next time, for Twelfth Night." Viola and Shakespeare say goodbye, and he promises to remember her, imagining the start of Twelfth Night, where a woman named Viola disguises herself as a man after a journey to a strange land.
Production
The original idea for the movie Shakespeare in Love was suggested to screenwriter Marc Norman in the late 1980s by his son, Zachary. Norman wrote a screenplay draft and shared it with director Edward Zwick, who then invited Julia Roberts to play the character Viola. However, Zwick did not like Norman’s screenplay and asked playwright Tom Stoppard to help improve it. Stoppard had previously written a successful play called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which was about Shakespeare.
The film began production in 1991 at Universal Studios, with Zwick as director. Sets and costumes were being built, but Shakespeare’s role had not yet been cast because Roberts insisted only Daniel Day-Lewis could play the part. Day-Lewis refused, and when Roberts could not convince him, she left the film six weeks before filming was scheduled to start. Zwick and Universal tried to match Roberts with other actors, including Hugh Grant, Ralph Fiennes, Jeremy Northam, Rupert Graves, Colin Firth, and Sean Bean. However, Roberts skipped these meetings or found problems with the actors. After a final screen test with Paul McGann, Roberts left the project. Zwick said she left because she felt nervous about the pressure to succeed in the role. The film production was put on hold, and Zwick could not convince other studios to take over the screenplay. Canceling the film cost Universal $6 million.
Later, Zwick got Miramax Films interested in the screenplay, but Miramax chose John Madden as director instead of Zwick. Zwick became a producer, and Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein also worked as a producer. This caused controversy in the film industry, leading to a rule now called “the Harvey Rule,” which requires producers to have a real role in making the film to earn credit. To justify his producer credit, Weinstein claimed he took time off from his job at Miramax to work on the movie. A senior Miramax executive, Mark Gill, called this claim “complete nonsense.”
Weinstein convinced Ben Affleck to take a small role as Ned Alleyn. Kate Winslet was offered the role of Viola after her success in Titanic, but she refused to join the film and instead focused on independent projects. Winona Ryder, Diane Lane, and Robin Wright were also considered for the lead role. Principal photography began on March 2, 1998, and ended on June 10, 1998. The film was changed after early test screenings. A scene between Shakespeare and Viola in a boat was re-shot to make it more emotional, and some lines were re-recorded to explain why Viola had to marry Wessex. The ending was re-shot multiple times until Stoppard came up with the idea of Viola suggesting that their parting could inspire Shakespeare’s next play.
Locations used during filming included Hatfield House in Hertfordshire (for the fireworks scene), Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire (used as the de Lesseps mansion), the beach at Holkham in Norfolk, the chapel at Eton College in Berkshire, and the Great Hall of Middle Temple in London.
References to Elizabethan literature
The film shares many similarities with the story of Romeo and Juliet. In the movie, Will and Viola act out scenes similar to the famous balcony and bedroom scenes from the play. Like Juliet, Viola has a clever nurse and is separated from Will because of responsibilities (not because of a family feud, as in the play, where the two families are believed to be inspired by two competing theaters). The two lovers face challenges that make their relationship difficult, as Viola comes from a wealthy and influential family and is expected to marry Lord Wessex, while Shakespeare is poor and already married. Rosaline, the character Will loves at the beginning of the film, shares the same name as Romeo’s love interest in the play. The film also includes scenes that copy styles from earlier movies of Shakespeare’s works, such as the balcony scene resembling one from the Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet.
The film uses many storytelling techniques common in Shakespeare’s comedies and other plays from the Elizabethan era. These include a ruler pretending to be a common person (like in Henry V), characters wearing clothes of the opposite gender, mistaken identities, sword fights, suspicion of cheating, a pretend ghost (like in Hamlet and Macbeth), and a play within a play. According to Douglas Brode, the film shows these techniques in a way that suggests they might have inspired Shakespeare’s own use of them in his plays.
In the film, Christopher Marlowe is shown as the most respected playwright of his time, which is historically correct. This is also humorous because the audience knows that Marlowe’s reputation will eventually be overshadowed by Shakespeare’s. Marlowe gives Shakespeare an idea for his next play, Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter. Lines from Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus are repeated in the film. A scene also references Marlowe’s last, unfinished play, The Massacre at Paris, when Marlowe (played by Rupert Everett) asks Richard Burbage (played by Martin Clunes) for payment for the final part of the play. Burbage promises to pay the next day, so Marlowe keeps the pages and leaves for Deptford, where he is later killed.
A child named John Webster (played by Joe Roberts), who plays with mice, is a reference to a famous playwright from the next generation. Webster’s plays, such as The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil, are known for their violent scenes. In the film, the child jokingly mentions enjoying Titus Andronicus and says, when asked about Romeo and Juliet, “I liked it when she stabbed herself.” A Thames waterman who takes Shakespeare to the estate of Robert de Lesseps and asks for Shakespeare’s opinion on his writing is connected to John Taylor.
Plot precedents and similarities
After the film was released, some publications, such as Private Eye, pointed out many similarities between the film and the 1941 novel No Bed for Bacon, written by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon. This novel also includes Shakespeare falling in love and finding inspiration for his later plays. In a foreword to a later edition of No Bed for Bacon (which used the connection by stating it was "A Story of Shakespeare and Lady Viola in Love"), Ned Sherrin, a writer and former partner of Brahms, confirmed that he had given a copy of the novel to Stoppard after he joined the writing team. However, he stated that the film’s main plot was created independently by Marc Norman, who did not know about the earlier work.
The film’s story has roots in earlier fiction, such as Alexandre Duval’s Shakespeare amoureux ou la Piece a l'Etude (1804), which features Shakespeare falling in love with an actress playing Richard III. In 1999, the writers of Shakespeare in Love were sued by bestselling author Faye Kellerman. She claimed the film’s plot was stolen from her 1989 novel The Quality of Mercy, in which Shakespeare romances a Jewish woman who dresses as a man and tries to solve a murder. Miramax Films spokesman Andrew Stengel called the claim, filed in the US District Court six days before the 1999 Academy Awards, "absurd" and argued the timing "suggests a publicity stunt." An out-of-court settlement was reached, but the amount agreed upon by both sides indicates the claim was "unwarranted."
Historical inaccuracies
The film does not worry about being accurate in terms of literature or history. It includes mistakes in time periods, such as mentioning Virginia tobacco plantations before the Colony of Virginia existed. Another mistake is showing Shakespeare trying to create the story of Romeo and Juliet, even though in real life he adapted an existing story. Arthur Brooke translated an Italian story called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet into English in 1562, 32 years before Shakespeare wrote his play.
A main character is called the Earl of Wessex, a title that did not exist for over 500 years during Shakespeare's time. The Sunday Telegraph reported that Prince Edward, the third son of Queen Elizabeth II, became interested in the title of Earl of Wessex after watching the film and seeing the character in it.
Reception
Shakespeare in Love was the top-grossing film in the United Kingdom in 1999. In the United States and Canada, the film earned over $100 million, and in the United Kingdom, it earned $34 million. Including all other countries, the film earned more than $289 million worldwide.
On Rotten Tomatoes, Shakespeare in Love has a 92% approval rating based on 141 reviews, with an average score of 8.30 out of 10. The site’s summary says the film is "endlessly witty, visually beautiful, and sweetly romantic," calling it a successful romantic comedy. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 87 out of 100 based on 33 reviews, which means it received "universal acclaim." Audiences who saw the film gave it an average grade of "A" on a scale from A+ to F.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the film an "NYT Critics' Pick" and described it as "pure enchantment." She said Gwyneth Paltrow gave a "breathtaking" performance, making her character seem believable as Shakespeare’s muse.
Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four. He wrote that the film mixes humor, love stories, and drama in a way that feels like a mix between a serious drama and a comedy. He also said the film includes scenes from Romeo and Juliet and called it "surprisingly sweet." Filmmaker David Cronenberg criticized the film, saying it "really annoyed me" because he felt it was "deconstructionist filmmaking" but also seemed like "Romeo and Juliet" again.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that the film influenced a real-life title change. Prince Edward was originally going to be called Duke of Cambridge after his marriage in 1999. However, after watching Shakespeare in Love, he asked his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, to give him the title of Earl of Wessex instead, inspired by a character played by Colin Firth in the film.
Awards and nominations
Shakespeare in Love won the Best Picture Oscar at the 71st Academy Awards, causing disagreement by beating Saving Private Ryan, a film many critics believed should have won. It was the first comedy to receive the Best Picture award since Annie Hall (1977). Many people criticized the academy for choosing Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan. Additionally, Gwyneth Paltrow won Best Actress for her role in Shakespeare in Love, beating Cate Blanchett, who was the leading candidate for her role in Elizabeth.
Industry experts suggested that Shakespeare in Love’s Best Picture win was influenced by a strong campaign led by Harvey Weinstein. Reports stated that Weinstein persuaded the film’s cast and crew to participate in an intense press effort. Terry Press, an executive at DreamWorks at the time, said that Weinstein and Miramax tried to make people believe that Saving Private Ryan was only as good as its first 15 minutes. Mark Gill, an executive at Miramax, noted that Weinstein relied on inexpensive publicity methods. He explained, “This was not asking the stars to do a few interviews to promote the film. It was telling them, ‘You have three more months of shaking hands and kissing babies in you.’”
In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter magazine reported that it had spoken with hundreds of Academy members. The survey suggested that most members would have chosen Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture if given the option. The article also claimed that the outcomes of four other Best Picture winners might have been different, calling the results a “referendum on what films have stood the test of time.” In 2020, Glenn Close said in an interview that she believed Gwyneth Paltrow winning Best Actress over Fernanda Montenegro for Central Station did not “make sense.” Montenegro responded by thanking Close for her praise but said she believed the Oscar should have gone to Cate Blanchett.
In 2005, the Writers Guild of America ranked the script of Shakespeare in Love as the 28th greatest ever written.
American Film Institute recognition:
• AFI’s 100 Years…100 Passions – #50
Home media and rights
At first, the film's home video releases in the United States were managed by Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment, which operated under the Miramax Home Entertainment brand. Outside the United States, the film's home video releases were assigned to Universal, the film's international distributor. The film was released on VHS and LaserDisc in the United States on August 10, 1999, by Miramax Home Entertainment, followed by a DVD release on December 7, 1999. In late 1999, LaserDisc versions of the film were released in Japan and Hong Kong. These LaserDiscs were produced by CIC Video, a partnership formed by Paramount and Universal to distribute their films outside North America. The Australian (Region 4) and British (Region 2) DVD versions were released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
In December 2010, Miramax was sold by The Walt Disney Company, which had owned the studio since 1993. That same month, the studio was acquired by a private equity firm called Filmyard Holdings. Filmyard granted home media rights for several Miramax films to Lionsgate. On January 31, 2012, Lionsgate released Shakespeare in Love on a domestic Blu-ray. In 2011, Filmyard Holdings gave Netflix the rights to stream Miramax films, including Shakespeare in Love. This streaming agreement lasted five years and ended on June 1, 2016.
In March 2016, Filmyard Holdings sold Miramax to a Qatari company called beIN Media Group. In April 2020, ViacomCBS (now known as Paramount Skydance) acquired the rights to Miramax's film library after purchasing a 49% ownership stake in the studio from beIN. This deal included the U.S. rights to Shakespeare in Love and the rights to all 700 films in Miramax's library. This agreement placed Shakespeare in Love under the same company as Saving Private Ryan, its Oscar competitor, which Paramount co-released with DreamWorks and later fully acquired in 2006.
Paramount Home Entertainment reissued Shakespeare in Love on DVD and Blu-ray on January 12, 2021, as part of a larger effort to reissue many Miramax films around that time. On September 22, 2020, Paramount Home Entertainment released a four-film DVD set that included Shakespeare in Love and three other Miramax films starring Gwyneth Paltrow (Emma, Bounce, and View from the Top). They also released a two-disc DVD featuring Shakespeare in Love paired with Emma on February 23, 2021. In the United States, the film became available on Paramount's subscription streaming service, Paramount+, and on their free streaming service, Pluto TV.
Stage adaptation
In November 2011, Variety reported that Disney Theatrical Productions planned to create a stage version of the film in London with Sonia Friedman Productions. This news came after Disney had sold Miramax to Filmyard Holdings in December 2010, ending their ownership of the film. The stage production was officially announced in November 2013. Based on the film screenplay by Norman and Stoppard, the play was adapted for the stage by Lee Hall. The production was directed by Declan Donnellan and designed by Nick Ormerod, who are the co-founders of Cheek by Jowl.
The play opened at the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End on July 23, 2014, and received very good reviews from critics. The Daily Telegraph called it "A joyous celebration of theatre," The Independent described it as "Joyous," and The Guardian referred to it as "A love letter to theatre."
From December 2016 to January 2017, a Japanese version of Shakespeare in Love, titled Shakespeare of True Love (Japanese: シェイクスピア物語～真実の愛), was produced at the Kanagawa Arts Theatre. This version was written by Shigeki Motoiki and Sakurako Fukuyama and was not connected to Lee Hall's play. Takaya Kamikawa played Will Shakespeare, and Alisa Mizuki played Viola.