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| Shakespeare in Love | |
| If this film's screenwriters are to be believed, Shakespeare relied on his writing talent rather than his imagination, and made his work highly autobiographical. In 1593, theater director Henslowe (Geoffrey Rush) commissions a comedy entitled Romeo and Ethel, The Pirate's Daughter from 29-year-old unknown scribe and thesp Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes). Shakespeare has been married in Stratford for the past 10 years, so his love for London aristocrat Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) is always bound for trouble - not least because she, too, has been promised to another. As the play's rehearsals progress, what was originally intended to be a buccaneer romp is transformed by Shakespeare's pining into the greatest tragic romance in theatrical history. |
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"The point about Shakespeare's life is that nobody knows anything," says Madden. And so he weaves historical facts, fictitious characters and allusions to Shakespeare's later classics into a tapestry that corresponds rather well with the great bard's most famous romantic drama. " |