Gywneth Paltrow as Viola De Lesseps in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

GYWNETH PALTROW

GYWNETH PALTROW as Viola De Lesseps in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE.

I’m going to get a lot of flack for this but this is an amazing performance by an amazing actress and I stand by it scene for scene. She is the best young Actress in the young group – standing tall along side Reese Witherspoon, Michelle Williams, and Natalie Portman. Better than The Gel-lars, The Ryders, The Lohans – perhaps all of them combined. Starting with the text itself. This great story telling – clever - ingenious (the reducing of history and the period in a) contemporary romantic comedy. But these pieces of dialogue are not easiest words to say for the two leads. Let alone putting something underneath and then passion and inspiration and all that is art and theatre. Hard to do – easy to comprehend but very hard to play. Gywneth tackles it with gusto, grace and ease.

In every performance there’s always that one moment that wraps up the entire character and film and for me is at the end on stage with that look off stage to her lover waiting in the wings. Reminiscent of Hollywood’s Golden Era of Cinema and the leading ladies of the past like Hepburn , Davis and Grace Kelly – Paltrow is almost saying along with everything that’s required to her lover, to the audience as well - with a simple smile and gaze “Don’t give up on us young ladies yet!”. She is trying to bring 'style and class back to film acting'. That face and talent is one that gives us pure hope that things may change. Actors are not just about fashion, ( although she dos it quite well), paparazzi and tabloid - that the true blue art of acting is possible again. And young woman don’t have to flash their cuchie to get noticed in Hollywood.

It’s one of the best reviewed movies of the 90’s but yet people seemed to gather in their hatred for Ms. Paltrow and her nepotism and privileged upbringing with her father Producer – actress mother- Danner and God Father Spielberg but this is an actress of rare quality. So back off haters!

I remember Anthony Hopkins interviewed when asked about Ms. Paltrow’s talent on Oparh and he said simply – “I’ve worked with all of them as you know – And Gywneth is the best of them all” He said it – “OF THE ALL” – Anthony Hopkinds folks – Not Ryan Reynolds. ANTHONY HOPKINS, hel-lo! He worked with Hepburn, Anne Brancroft, Jody Foster, Emma Thompson and he picked this young lady. I think America must reconsider why we’d placed such hard judgements and exiled Gwyneth. It’s not justified, you are missing out on an incredible talent.

Back to Shakespeare in Love

This is all wonderful stuff Gwyneth Paltrow, in her first great, fully realized starring performance, makes a heroine so breathtaking that she seems utterly plausible as the playwright's guiding light. In a film steamy enough to start a sonnet craze, her Viola De Lesseps really does seem to warrant the most timeless love poems, and to speak Shakespeare's own elegant language with astonishing ease. ''Shakespeare in Love'' itself seems as smitten with her as the poet is, and as alight with the same love of language and beauty.

And the humor of "Shakespeare in Love" is standard setting. Mixing farce, sexual innuendo, old actors' and writers' in-jokes, puns to do with the situations at hand, a running joke about the popularity of Christopher Marlowe and everything I've mentioned in previous paragraphs, it does a better job of cramming sharp gags into every moment than "Wag the Dog", or even "Annie Hall". John Madden, who lets his camera breeze throughout the sets heedlessly and his actors perform with high energy levels, creating something joyous and accessible. Romantic, too -- his stroke of genius in making the movie is to push the love story into the foreground and the banter into the back. This gives us a true, emotional, serious involvement in the affair (Viola has a shattering line, with "This is not life, Will... this is a stolen season."), but also helps the comedy, because it now seems to have more of an unintentional, incidental, off-hand manner.

Madden's entire cast serves him well, too, because he controls each player just right, giving them the freedom to do showy work and yet applying enough restraint on them so that the ensemble piece works, with nobody trying to steal the show. Having said that, Fiennes and Paltrow are especially engaging…Fiennes was overlooked come that award season and it’s a pity.

This is a great film, which stands up to multiple viewings. I've seen it several times, and learned that it is so sweet, endearing and layered, familiarity only accentuates the charm, energy and passion. When so many films are nonsensical products of assembly-line cynicism, "Shakespeare in Love" is a wonder to behold, and to cherish. If you watch her work in SILVIA and PROOF there is series artists here that commits to the inner life of the character that young actresses just don’t bother with. It’s rare gift, maybe passed down – maybe unique. This business is only nepotistic for that first role and then you have to prove yourself.

Finally, though, as always in romance, it's the stars, especially Paltrow, that carry the film. Fiennes, the younger brother of Ralph, has the burning eyes and brooding demeanor appropriate for a lover, and he and Paltrow, flourishing once again under a British accent and doing her best work - have a winning chemistry. It's no small thing to be completely believable as a besotted couple who can't keep their hands off each other, and that is what the pair accomplish here.

We need to forgive ourselves for being so cruel to Ms. Paltrow and that goes for you too Kathy Griffin – We need more young actresses to have Gwyneth’s integrity and grace and daring application system. Walking off in the end in the film – is parallel perhaps her walking away from Hollywood – as it were. I say, come back GP, come back!