Follow TV Tropes

Following

Film / Shakespeare in Love

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0773.JPG

Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Fennyman: So what do we do?
Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Fennyman: How?
Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 Shakespeare in Fiction Romantic Comedy directed by John Madden (no, not the one associated with American football), written by Tom Stoppard, and with a packed cast led by Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck, and Judi Dench.

Meet William Shakespeare (Fiennes), an aspiring playwright who can't find the inspiration to write another Screwball Comedy and works for a theater strapped for money. In the bed of his mistress Rosaline, he tries to find inspiration for a comedy titled Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter. Meanwhile, Viola De Lesseps (Paltrow), a noblewoman engaged to marry an entrepreneur in the Americas, dreams of the stage but is frustrated, because women are banned from the boards. However, she goes out to audition anyway, dressed up as a boy, and is astounded when she gets the part... of Romeo. Tension soon erupts between her and the suddenly single Will, and hilarity, angst, secrecy, and a little sex ensue.

Much like a Shakespearean comedy, you might say.

The film is most noted nowadays for its performance at the 1999 Academy Awards, where Paltrow won Best Actress over frontrunner Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth), and the film far more notoriously won Best Picture over the universal critical darling Saving Private Ryan. To some, the latter outcome is one of the greatest award snubs in film history; to others, it's a blessed relief from the Academy's usual insistence that True Art Is Angsty. Ironically, Paramount, which had a hand in Saving Private Ryan and now owns the worldwide rights to that film after buying DreamWorks SKG, now owns the North American rights to Shakespeare in Love after buying a minority stake in Miramax (which in 1998 was owned by Disney) in 2020.


This film provides examples of:

  • Actor Allusion: Queen Elizabeth shares a brief affectionate moment with Will, who is played by Joseph Fiennes. The same year he had also starred as the Queen's lover in Elizabeth, which this film ended up competing against at the Oscars.
  • Always Someone Better: Marlowe, to poor Shakespeare. It's a one-sided rivalry with poor Will envious of all the fame Marlowe has, while Marlowe easily passes along story ideas without a care. A bit of a Historical In-Joke because at the time Marlowe was the better regarded writer: Shakespeare's reputation really didn't take off until later.
  • Anachronism Stew: The film does not hesitate to throw historical accuracy out the window if they can sneak in a joke about the modern studio system. Standouts are Shakespeare's visit to Dr. Monk (poking fun at modern psychiatrists), the awful "Visit Stratford Upon Avon" souvenir mug in Will's room, and the audition scene (Elizabethan companies of players didn't do this, although they do make the excuse that the normal troupe is still coming back from a country tour and is running late).
  • Arc Words: Or Arc Exchange. Some variant of "It all turns out well." "How?" "I don't know, it's a mystery." comes up as a running gag about the disastrous nature of theater that becomes serious at the end when Will and Viola are separated.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil: Played with; by the standards of the time, the Earl of Wessex was in the right to act as he did, considering Lady Viola, who was betrothed to him, lost her maidenhead to a playwright.
  • Artistic License – History:
    • The real Shakespeare didn't create the plot of Romeo and Juliet, let alone make it up as he went along or change it from a comedy to a tragedy when his own love life was on the rocks — as is the case with most of his work,note  he was adapting pre-existing poems, stories or historical records for the stage. In this case, he used The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.
    • There would not have been open auditions for parts or people being cast as a favour/nepotism; Shakespeare was a member of a theatrical troupe as was standard for the era, so the parts would have been written for specific actors in his troupe to best match their strengths, and the only way to join such a troupe would have been apprenticeship as a youth or getting hired for behind the scenes work or very minor roles, never one of the main characters and especially not one of the two leading roles.
    • Royalty at this point in time would never have set foot in a public theatre. Theatrical companies were often invited to play in the Elizabethan court though. The Queen does not go to the theatre, the theatre goes to the Queen. Queen Elizabeth does point this out herself, however.
    Queen Elizabeth: The Queen of England does not attend exhibitions of public lewdness so something is out of joint.
    • Viola is shipped off to the "Virginia Colony" years before the first permanent English settlement in North America, much less thriving plantations.
    • Viola's husband-to-be is the Earl of Wessex, a title that had not existed for five centuries before the time of the story. Likely an example of No Celebrities Were Harmed.
  • Artistic License - Theatrical Production: In the Play Within a Play, there are a few instances of staging that work great on film, but would be really poor choices on stage — let alone in an open-air theater with no amplification. A glaring example: during Mercutio's death scene, he sinks against a pillar, then Romeo upstages him, back to the audience, and Mercutio growls his last words in a near-whisper, which shouldn't have been heard by anyone past the first row of groundlings.
  • Becoming the Mask: Hugh Fennyman is originally only interested in the play's success to recoup some of the money Henslowe owes him. Given a small part as an apothecary he becomes obsessed with it and forgets why he allowed the play to go on.
  • Biography à Clef: While not the first film or first fictional take on Shakespeare to feature this trope, it was certainly a Trope Codifier in the mainstream. It more or less presents hypothetical analogues to some of the fictional characters and figures that would eventually appear in the Bard's plays, namely Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night.
  • Bittersweet Ending:
    • Shakespeare and Viola don't end up together, and Viola is destined for a loveless marriage, but they console each other with the knowledge that they will be ageless in each other's memories. The film ends with Shakespeare writing Twelfth Night, with Viola as his muse, as a way to imagine an unlikely happy ending for the two of them.
    • In better news, Shakespeare becomes in-story the next great dramatist, whose literary works in Real Life will shape the English language and have remained... will remain... timeless.
  • Blatant Lies: How Will convinces Ned to play the character of Mercutio- by telling him the play is called Mercutio and it's the leading role.
  • Butt-Monkey: Theatre owner Henslowe. Hunted by loan sharks, ignored by his authors and humiliated by his actors. All he wants to do is make a little money, keep his theatre open and put on a play with an amusing bit about a dog.
  • Casting Gag:
    • Ben Affleck has a minor role, playing a big-name actor who is tricked into taking a minor role.
    Shakespeare: You, sir, are a gentleman.
    Alleyn: And you, sir, are a Warwickshire shithouse.
    • Imelda Staunton plays Viola's nurse. Her husband Jim Carter plays the actor who plays the nurse in Romeo & Juliet - who is based on Staunton's character.
  • Catchphrase: "I don't know... it's a mystery."
  • Chekhov's Gun: Viola has a very good memory and is easily able to learn her lines for Romeo. As it turns out, she knows the lines for Juliet as well, which literally saves the show when she needs to replace Sam.
  • Coitus Uninterruptus: Probably more realistic than most modern examples, as back in the day notions of privacy (especially among the lower classes, which certainly included actors) were... different (read: almost non-existent). Regardless, it doesn't last once he receives some bad news.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In the Play Within a Play, the Capulet family actors wear orange, red, and (for Juliet) pale gold, while the Montague members of the cast wears deep blues. This is very similar to Franco Zeffirelli's definitive film of Romeo and Juliet — with the difference that the Prince's family, instead of wearing brown, wears purple.
  • Creator Breakdown: In-universe. Will turns the play from a comedy into an outright tragedy once he realizes that he and Viola can never be together.
  • Creator Recovery: In-universe, followed on from the above. Will is then inspired to write Twelfth Night as a way of giving Viola a happy ending in fiction if she can't have one in real life.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Considering the screenplay was written by Tom Stoppard, suffice to say there are several examples.
  • Deus ex machina: Queen Elizabeth I turns up to watch the premiere of Romeo and Juliet incognito, and speaks up to save the troupe from being arrested for letting Viola perform on stage. Of course, there wasn't as much of a stigma attached to the trope back in Shakespeare's day — many of his plays had a duke or prince showing up in the last act to pass judgment and ensure a happy ending — so it could be justified by the Grandfather Clause. Her appearance is foreshadowed by the wager in her court earlier on at least. However, at the same time there's only so much she can do and in this case it's a Bittersweet Ending; since Viola and Wessex are legally married 'in the eyes of God' Elizabeth can't prevent Viola from having to leave for America and a loveless marriage.
  • Did Not Get the Girl: History - and the film itself - tells us that Shakespeare married a woman named Anne Hathaway (not that one) so viewers shouldn't get their hopes up. In fact he's already married to her at the time, and they have three children, which devastates Viola when she discovers this.
  • Driver of a Black Cab: Rower of A Thames Ferry Boat.
    "I had Christopher Marlowe in my boat once."
  • Eek, a Mouse!!: Webster uses his pet rat to make 'Thomas Kent' give 'himself' away as Viola when Mister Tilney gets confused about which "woman" is supposed to actually be a woman. A more justified example than most, because he drops it onto her head! - and the reveal is not her screaming, but rather pulling the wig off and exposing her long hair.
  • Enemy Mine: Shakespeare and Richard Burbage put aside their rivalry when Burbage offers Shakespeare's players the use of the Curtain theater, saying that as theater people they should stand up to the Master of the Revels.
  • Eternal Sexual Freedom: Viola gets off completely as a result of her affair, though going by the mores of the time her reputation would have been irretrievably ruined. In reality Lord Wessex most likely would have cancelled their engagement. Plus, no one else would marry her due to the stigma. However, as he's desperate for money, going through with it might not be wholly unrealistic (though he would want to insure she hadn't gotten pregnant by Shakespeare). On that note, there's no indication that she fears either pregnancy or STDs, though the former would also cause her ruin and the latter could be deadly with syphilis then (it's theorized by some Shakespeare contracted it).
  • Famed In-Story: Not Will Shakespeare, whose fame is yet to come, but Christopher Marlowe.
  • Follow That Boat!: This is how Will finds out where Viola lives, after she runs out of her audition.
  • Foregone Conclusion: The most obvious conclusion is that William Shakespeare's career is going to take off eventually.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Will asks if Sam's voice has broken yet in a throwaway line early on. His voice breaks on the day of the performance, leaving them without a Juliet.
    • Will attends an audience with Queen Elizabeth while he is Disguised in Drag; Viola has to remind him to curtsey and not bow. At the climax of the film, the Queen has to judge an accusation of there being a woman on the stage (Viola having stepped in to play Juliet), and summons "Master Kent" (Viola's male alter-ego) for inspection. Viola almost curtseys, but the Queen wordlessly signals a warning to her with her eyes, so she bows like a man instead.
  • Gondor Calls for Aid: When Mr. Tilney closes down the Rose Theatre for unwittingly breaking the rules about women on the stage, Burbage — despite being a rival of Will's acting troupe — declares a truce and helps them out:
    "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 theater. The Curtain is yours."
  • Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Shakespeare is married with children and Viola is engaged to Lord Wessex, but Lord Wessex is only marrying her for her money and Anne Hathaway is in Stratford-upon-Avon, and not particularly well-inclined towards Will at present.
  • Hammerspace: How does Viola, when crossdressing, get all that hair under the short wig?
  • He Really Can Act: Two in-universe examples.
    • Hugh Fennyman is given a small role as the Apothecary and is seen nervously going over his lines. When the time comes, he delivers a very nice performance (although his nerves do result in him jumping in early, cutting off Will and speaking over him; Shakespeare just rolls with it).
    • Wabash is a stutterer who's hired against Will's will. He overcomes his stutter to deliver an excellent performance as the Prince. Will congratulates him afterwards.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Fennyman starts the film as a greedy moneylender, but becomes enamored by the theater and is overjoyed to be given a small part as the Apothecary.
  • Historical Domain Character: Elizabeth I, Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, Richard Burbage, Shakespeare himself, not to mention the entire cast of Romeo and Juliet and even Mr. Henslowe, who did actually build the Rose Theatre in real life.
  • Historical In-Joke: Tied with Genius Bonus - for example, Stoppard spoofs the Shakespeare Authorship Question by having one character just plain ask him, "Are you the author of the plays of William Shakespeare?" To which Will answers yes.
  • Historical Person Punchline: The boy who wants to write violent plays is John Webster, the future author of The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil, both dark and macabre works with plenty of gruesome deaths.
  • Humiliation Conga: Even though Wessex gets what he wants in the end, he still has to go through the indignity of being stuffed down a stage trap (at least in the theatre version), being forced by the queen to pay up a wager, and have the entire audience know that his fiancée cuckolded him.
  • Implausible Deniability: At the climax. Everyone in the theater knows that Viola was a woman playing Juliet. The guards are right there to arrest them. But the Queen is also there. She announces that she does not attend exhibitions of public lewdness and that the "illusion" is remarkable. And, because she is the Queen, everyone has to go along with it.
  • Impoverished Patrician: The Wessex family, and Lord Wessex wishes to marry Viola to secure some money.
  • Instant Expert: Thomas Kent aka Viola de Lesseps, despite having never acted before, is utterly captivating as Romeo and, later, as Juliet despite a few flubs in the dancing rehearsals. Helped out by Viola's passion for the material (and the playwright) and her very good memory.
  • Interrupted Intimacy: A Running Gag.
  • King Incognito: Queen Elizabeth and her attendants go to the performance of Romeo and Juliet in disguise.
  • Lampshaded Double Entendre: In the grand Shakespearian tradition, penis jokes:
    Will: "It's as if my quill is broken, as if the organ of my imagination has dried up, as if the proud tower of genius is collapsed. Nothing comes. It's like trying to pick a lock with a wet herring."
    Dr. Moth: Tell me, are you lately...humbled...in the act of love?
    Will (embarrassed, waving a hand): 'Tis... a recent problem.
    Dr. Moth: How long has it been?
    Will: A goodly length, in times past, but lately...
  • Last Kiss: Shakespeare and Viola share one before she leaves with her new husband (not Shakespeare) to a colony in the new world.
  • Loan Shark: The movie opens with Fennyman the moneylender torturing the owner of the Rose for his unpaid debts. He ends up being enamored of the theater.
  • Local Reference: Viola is to be taken to the English colonies in North America (which didn't exist yet in reality).
  • The Loins Sleep Tonight: Shakespeare's been suffering from impotence in conjunction with his writer's block. After he meets Viola, both end.
  • Loophole Abuse: When Mr. Tilney shuts down the Rose Theatre for unknowingly letting Viola, a woman, act on the stage, Richard Burbage offers the Curtain Theatre for them to use instead — after all, Tilney didn't forbid Will's troupe from performing in a different venue. When he shows up to arrest them just as Romeo and Juliet has concluded, Burbage angrily points out that "You closed the Rose; I have not opened it!"
  • Mood Whiplash: A few examples:
    • One minute, the troupe is carousing in a local bar/brothel, the next, Henslowe mentions Shakespeare's wife in passing, and Viola takes off. Then one of the actors comes in with the news that Marlowe has been killed, and Shakespeare thinks he's responsible because he gave Wessex Marlowe's name as a pseudonym, and told him that he's been visiting his future wife.
    • The scene where Shakespeare learns the truth behind Marlowe's death. He holds Wessex at knifepoint and loudly proclaims him to be Marlowe's murderer... only to be informed that Marlowe actually died in a bar fight over his tab, after getting his own knife through the eye.
    • After Shakespeare explains how Romeo and Juliet takes a turn for the worse:
    Henslowe: *deadpan* Well, that'll have 'em rolling in the aisles.
    • Another example comes after Tilney closes the Rose because they were unknowingly letting Viola act. Fennyman comes in, still wrapped up in trying to memorize his lines, and asks "Everything all right?"
  • Moral Guardians: There are two.
    • Part of Tilney's job as Master of the Revels is to censor plays intended for public performance so that they do not offend either the Queen or the people.
    • Before the play opens at The Curtain there's a Puritan protesting the performance (Puritans were opposed to theater entirely).
  • Ms. Fanservice: Gwyneth Paltrow is topless multiple times in her sex scenes.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Subverted. After Wessex is led to believe that Marlowe is the playwright who's been sleeping with Viola, he's very pleased to tell Viola that Marlowe has been killed, and flees in terror at the sight of Will (who he believes to be Marlowe's vengeful ghost) at the funeral, leading Will to believe Wessex murdered Marlowe. However, it's later revealed that Wessex didn't have anything to do with Marlowe's death, and Marlowe's death was because of a fight over his bar tab.
  • The Muse: Almost the entire point of the movie. Will at first thinks Rosaline will be his muse, but when he catches her in bed with Tilney, he turns her into the Romantic False Lead in the play. Viola then becomes his muse properly.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Shakespeare, when he thinks he got Marlowe killed by Wessex.
  • Nobility Marries Money: Viola, a daughter of a wealthy merchant, marries Lord Wessex, who needs money to fund his colony in the new world.
  • Not Worth Killing: After Wessex finds out that Shakespeare has slept with Viola, he tries to kill him, but after finding out how much misfortune has befallen him, he tells him, "I came to have your life. But it is not worth the taking." Admittedly, this was after they had already fought, with Shakespeare besting Wessex.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Romeo and Juliet, debut performance. At stake, Shakespeare's entire reputation. Will, playing Romeo, is in the depths of despair; Sam, the boy supposed to play Juliet, has just hit puberty with a horrifically broken voice; and as the curtain rises, the actor reciting the Prologue can't get out a single word in his stuttering panic. The fifteen or twenty seconds that follows is one drawn-out Oh, Crap! moment before he starts off what has to be the most touching version of Romeo and Juliet ever to be performed onscreen.
    • Of similar import is the moment of Juliet's initial entrance near the end of the movie. Sam is gargling to try and get his voice high enough, the nurse is calling for Juliet's arrival on-stage, and when it looks like he's about to go on and completely cock up the whole play with his newly christened baritone voice, Viola goes out instead, and EVERYONE from the audience to the actors on-stage knows a cardinal rule was just broken into pieces, but because The Show Must Go On, nobody says anything. Henslowe and Burbage just share a "fuck it, why not" kind of exchange.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Ben Affleck gamely tried to put on an English accent as Ned Alleyn, but it fades in and out during his performance.
  • Oscar Bait: An English period piece, featuring (however briefly) a royal. Works every time.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Played With. Whilst Viola's disguise fools the theatre company, it doesn't fool anyone who already knows her, as the Boatman says her disguise wouldn't fool a child.
  • Parents Suck at Matchmaking: Viola is betrothed by her parents to the unsufferable Lord Wessex, who kisses her forcefully. She has no say in that because he gets permission from the Queen Elizabeth to marry her.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: It's the Elizabethan period. Duh. It's actually in the script that Viola's dress be literally stunning.
  • Puddle-Covering Chivalry: The queen stops in front of a puddle and looks for help. All the guys hesitate and then reach to throw their jackets down for her. But she loses patience and just steps in the mud.
  • Recursive Crossdressing: Features a woman, dressing as a male actor, who plays Juliet... resulting in this classic line:
    "That woman... is a woman!"
  • Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Struggling playwright Shakespeare vs. Lord Wessex (who isn't actually rich - that's why he's marrying Viola in the first place - but has the noble name to back himself up). Wessex inevitably 'wins.'
  • A Round of Drinks for the House: The producer orders one before exclaiming "Oh, happy hour!" (with the inflection one would use for "oh, happy day!"). Of course, it's also a brothel. And those services are ALSO offered free for a bit. Fennyman was in a REALLY good mood.
  • Running Gag: Henslowe saying "It's a mystery" when he does not know how a problem will be solved. And, in the good tradition of theater, it does, every time.
  • Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: When Mr. Tilney tries to arrest the players at the end of the play for letting Viola act on stage, Queen Elizabeth reveals her presence in the crowd and comes down to the stage to settle the issue. Absolutely nobody believes for even a second that Viola is merely a very pretty young man playing a woman's role, but when the queen declares it to be so ("The illusion is remarkable") and lets Tilney off the hook, nobody can contradict her. Slightly played with, however- Viola almost curtseys to the queen, but Elizabeth conveys with the merest flicker of her eyes that if Viola screws up on this one thing (by effectively admitting she's a woman) then not even she can do anything, so Viola catches herself and bows like a man instead.
  • Sexposition: An early scene with the theater manager has him discussing the staging of the play while having energetic sex with a prostitute. As with many instances of Sexposition, this one overlaps with Coitus Uninterruptus.
  • Shakespeare in Fiction: Here, he's young, charismatic, melancholy, mostly lovelorn, and looking for a muse.
  • Shaped Like Itself: "That woman is a woman!"
  • Shipwreck Start: Discussed and inverted. It ends with Shakespeare's lover and muse Viola de Lesseps, about to travel on a boat to the New World with her husband, suggesting he start his next play — Twelfth Night — with a shipwreck. Once parted, he writes the beginning of Twelfth Night and imagines the shipwreck, naming his lead after Viola.
    Will: [voiceover] My story starts at sea. A perilous voyage to an unknown land. A shipwreck. The wild waters roar and heave. The brave vessel is dashed all to pieces, and all the helpless souls within her drowned. All save one: a lady whose soul is greater than the ocean, and her spirit, stronger than the sea’s embrace. Not for her a watery end, but a new life beginning on a stranger shore. It will be a love story, for she will be my heroine for all time. And her name will be Viola.
  • Shout-Out to Shakespeare: Obviously.
  • The Show Must Go Wrong: Lampshaded (see page quote) and then played straight.
  • Slow Clap: The first performance is met with this... mostly because the audience is weeping.
  • Spanner in the Works: Two, in fact; Elizabeth I snidely informs Lord Wessex that Viola has "been plucked since I saw her last, and not by you" and John Webster spies Shakespeare and Viola kissing and later squeals on them to Mr. Tilney.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: It's in the Tudor era and he's a poor playwright and she a noble, he's already married and she's betrothed and bound for America etc. Plus, it involves the very play that immortalized this trope of course.
  • Stutter Stop: Wabash never stutters once after he successfully delivers the prologue.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: Lady Viola de Lesseps, a wealthy lady, disguises herself as Thomas Kent, a player from the countryside.
  • Take That!: Fennyman proposes to Henslowe that the actors get paid for the play from the nonexistent profits the company will receive, a swipe at Hollywood's rather loose accounting procedures.
  • Troubling Unchildhood Behavior: Both downplayed and Played for Laughs with young John Webster and his obsession with gore.
  • Virgin Vision: The Queen has it, unfortunately. As she tells Lord Wessex:
    "She's been plucked since I saw her last, and not by you."
  • Wholesome Crossdresser:
    • Viola, posing as Thomas Kent, and Sam, the actor who is cast as Juliet.
    • Only slightly less wholesome is Will himself, when he dresses himself as "Wilhemina," Viola's nursemaid who always holds "her" veil over "her" face (to disguise the beard!). Thus attired, Will accompanies Viola to the Queen's celebration.
    • Of course, Her Majesty is not fooled in the slightest.
      Master Shakespeare, next time you come to Whitecastle, come as yourself and we shall talk of this some more.
  • The Wicked Stage: The film shows our actor friends a-whoring and a-wasting in houses of ill repute.
  • Writer's Block Montage: Played with. Our first shot of Will sees him busily and confidently scribbling away, and we cut to his paper to see that he's just trying out different signatures over and over (a Historical In-Joke on the famously inconsistent signatures we have records of). However, he does crumple up a sheet of parchment and toss it away moodily - only for it to land next to a very Hamlet-esque skull.
  • Young Future Famous People:
    • Stoppard imagines early-career-Shakespeare as a mercurial writer, prone to mood swings, and much more a Performer than a Technician. Magpie-like, he snatches up good names and turns of phrase wherever he finds them - that much is accurate - and he has a painful yearning for a great love, as well as to write great works.
    • John Webster appears as a young boy with an unhealthy interest in media violence.

Top