I still can't believe this boring movie beat Saving Private Ryan. I mean Gwyneth Paltrow is good and the costumes looked decent but it was just meh. Maybe I'd like it more if I was more familiar with all of Shakespeare's work.

Great directing, a solid script, but somewhat of an average romantic story. The music is fairly cartoonish and typical of 20th century films. The costumes and set deisgn are marvelous. Its a shame this film is mired in the bad decision to be best picture, when Saving Private Ryan should have won.

So this is the movie that beat Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture at the Oscars...WTF?.

Shakespeare in Love isn't a bad movie as people are pointing out to be, just because it won Best Picture at the Oscars, but Saving Private Ryan was overall a better movie and should have won, just saying.

The acting was good, the directing was fine and the sets and costumes were good as well.

Young Will Shakespeare, suffering a bout of writer's block, happens across an intense love and draws inspiration for new material from the whirlwind romance.

For a best picture winner, this is awfully mediocre stuff. The plot is simplistic and over-familiar, the acting merely acceptable, and the constant nods and winks to the budding auteur's work quickly grows excessive and wearying. Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes are attractive people and make convincing googly eyes at one another, but their relationship is so swift and passion-fueled that it never feels like more than a fiery seasonal fling. Judi Dench took home a best supporting actress statue for her work as Queen Elizabeth I, though she barely makes a cameo appearance and most of her work seems done by the wardrobe department.

Irritatingly blunt at times, particularly when it tries its hand at comedy, I appreciate the freshness of the concept if not its flimsy, dated execution.