Shakespeare in love

In this modern movie representation of Shakespeare the writers are trying to go for a representation of a play within a play. Not only are they telling the story of Shakespeare but the movie is also paralleling the story that they are acting in the movie, Romeo and Juliet. The story starts out much like Romeo and Juliet in that it begins like a comedy. Just the title of the play he is trying to write is humorous, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. The story also starts out making fun of love just like Romeo we are laughing as Shakespeare makes bad puns about the his ‘dry quill’ that can’t write anymore. The story follows Shakespeare played with a fondness for sexual innuendos.

We also see other hints of Shakespeare’s plays in the gender changing of Viola who is pretending to be Mr. Kent. This is an interesting interpretation of how Shakespeare came up with the idea of gender switching. But it doesn’t really hold up because he had already written other plays about the same idea such as, Comedy of Errors. But the romance of course ends tragically and Viola is taken away to the new world but not before inspiring Twelfth Night and Shakespeare’s next heroine aptly named viola.

The story was very well told and amusingly written. It reminded me of Volpone in the fact that Viola’s marriage and Shakespeare’s financial relationships with his patrons seemed a lot like prostitution. This is especially evident in Viola’s case because she is giving up her pure reputation to act in the play with Shakespeare. Though the story and play is about love it has a common theme for the fact that we all prostitute ourselves for something, sometimes love.