History Film / ShakespeareInLove

* ImplausibleDeniability: At the climax. Everyone in the theater knows that Viola was a woman playing Juliet. The guards are right there to arrest them. But [[DeusExMachina the Queen is also there.]] She announces that she does not attend [[MoralGuardians exhibitions of public lewdness]] and that the "illusion" is remarkable. [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem And, because she is the Queen, everyone has to go alone with it.]]

* ARoundOfDrinksForTheHouse: The producer orders one before exclaiming "Oh, [[AnachronismStew happy hour!]]" (with the inflection one would use for "oh, happy day!").

* DidNotGetTheGirl: History - and the film itself - tells us that Shakespeare married a woman named Anne Hathaway ([[Creator/AnneHathaway not that one]],[[note]]Though that's who she's named after[[/note]]) so viewers [[DoomedByCanon shouldn't get their hopes up]] (in fact he's already married her at the time, and they have three children, which devastates Viola when she discovers this).

* CoitusUninterruptus: 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.

* ArcWords: Or Arc Exchange. Some variant of "It all turns out well." "How?" "I don't know, it's a mystery." A running gag about the disastrous nature of theater that becomes serious at the end [[spoiler: when Will and Viola are separated.]]

'''Henslowe:''' I don't know. It's a mystery.

* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: In the PlayWithinAPlay, 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 Zefirelli's definitive film of ''Romeo and Juliet'' -- with the difference that the Prince's family, instead of wearing brown, wears [[PurpleIsPowerful purple.]]

* OhCrap: Romeo and Juliet, debut performance. At stake, Shakespeare's entire reputation. [[spoiler: 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 OhCrap moment before he starts off what has to be the most touching version of RomeoAndJuliet ever to be performed onscreen.

* WritersBlockMontage: 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 HistoricalInJoke 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.

-->"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. [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming The Curtain is yours.]]"

--> '''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.

* StarCrossedLovers: [[spoiler:It's medieval times 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.

%%* RomanticComedy

%%* ShownTheirWork

Meet Creator/WilliamShakespeare (Fiennes), aspiring playwright who can't find the inspiration to write another ScrewballComedy, and works for a theater that needs money, badly. In the bed of his mistress, Rosaline, he tries to find inspiration for a comedy titled ''[[RomeoAndJuliet 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, [[SweetPollyOliver dressed up as a boy]], and is astounded when she gets the part... of [[WholesomeCrossdresser Romeo]]. Tension soon erupts between her and the suddenly single Will, and [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity, Angst, Secrecy, and a Little Sex Ensue.]] Much like a Shakespeare comedy, you might say.

* BiographyAClef: While not the first film or first fictional take on Shakespeare to feature this trope, it was certainly a TropeCodifier 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 Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet and Theatre/TwelfthNight.

* HeReallyCanAct: Two in-universe examples.

Meet Creator/WilliamShakespeare (Fiennes), aspiring playwright who can't find the inspiration to write another ScrewballComedy, and works for a theater that needs money, badly. In the bed of his mistress, Rosaline, he tries to find inspiration for a comedy titled ''[[RomeoAndJuliet 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 [[WholesomeCrossdresser Romeo]]. Tension soon erupts between her and the suddenly single Will, and [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity, Angst, Secrecy, and a Little Sex Ensue.]] Much like a Shakespeare comedy, you might say.

** This film perpetuates the revisionist myth (dating to 17th-century censored editions) that Shakespeare's love sonnets were written to a woman, rather than a man.

* Hammerspace: How does Viola, when crossdressing, get all that hair under the short wig?

* DidNotGetTheGirl: History - and the film itself - tells us that Shakespeare married a woman named Anne Hathaway ([[Creator/AnneHathaway not that one]],[[note]]Though that's who she's named after[[/note]]) so viewers [[DoomedByCanon shouldn't get their hopes up]].

* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: Shakespeare is married 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.

** Before the play opens at The Curtain there's a Puritan protesting the performance.
* TheMuse: Almost the entire point of the movie. Will at first thinks Rosaline will be his muse but when he catches her in bed with Burbage, he turns her into the RomanticFalseLead in the play. Viola then becomes his muse properly.

* TakeThat: 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 [[HollywoodAccounting loose accounting procedures]].