I must confess I have a bias against Shakespeare in Love. Not because it's a romantic melodrama with comic flashes and not because it's a romantic melodrama with comic flashes that also happens to be an historical costume drama.

My bias comes from seeing Saving Private Ryan with a bag of Hershey Kisses carefully unwrapped in my lap as the hapless lads of Normandy beach were strafed by German machine guns set to kill them. From the first gun blast and for the next 20 minutes I was paralyzed with horror as I watched the greatest war sequence yet put to the screen just as I was unable to eat my unwrapped Hershey Kisses. Spielberg's version of D-Day is without parallel in 50 years of moviemaking and for this accomplishment I'm grateful he won the Best Director Oscar if not the Best Picture honor as well.

This is not to say Shakespeare in Love isn't a fine film. In fact it's a pleasant lark and a smart bit of speculation about the germ of creative genius at the heart of William Shakespeare's career. On that basis alone it merits attention since it manages to remain broadly biographical though romantically affecting and this despite the potential impediment of a talk-heavy movie without any explosions or car chases, although we do get a glimpse of star Gwyneth Paltrow's breasts.

I must once again confess, however, that the boys of Normandy beach have my sympathies along with my sense of what constitutes film art to stand the test of time. Nevertheless the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted Shakespeare in Love Best Picture of 1998 so we're left to consider the award winner and not the losers.

Produced for a reported budget of $25 million and released for the Christmas bonanza, John Madden's movie about the birth of Romeo and Juliet strains points of credibility about the historical record but delivers its plot with such verve and panache as to escape such criticism as missing the point. Opening with the specific writer's block of Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) who is committed to producing various plays for competing theater troupes, the Elizabethan period's physical charms are put on display much to the joy of any serious Anglophile.

The world is sketch in traveling shots through the streets of London all leading to Shakespeare's loft where he's tucked away with quill in hand. The trouble in his bohemian hideaway is an unyielding labor to finish a play about a man named Romeo that somehow just can't seem to find its purpose or conclusion. In steps the inspiration of Viola De Lesseps (Paltrow), a wealthy maid and wholesale fan of the nearly anonymous William Shakespeare.

Quickly to romance the maiden Will is troubled by the nature of her betrothal to an aristocratic named Lord Wessex (Colin Firth) yet he pushes on to steal her heart with the playwriting of his play Romeo and Juliet. Therein lies the structuring purpose of the film. Each scene, each heartache, each romantic vista of now unforgettable language in Shakespeare's now immortal play is written even as Will and Viola make love under the innocence of their most unconventional union.

Due to the demands of time Viola also joins Will's troupe disguised as Master Thomas Kent to successfully help put on the show before she's swept away by her fiancé into a world absent the theater. From that point forward the movie follows the arc of the play with an enjoyable build up of action as Will and Viola fall further in love much as Romeo and Juliet in the play which bears their name.

As the stakes of their affection are raised, though, the looming trouble of times ahead creep. Finally the play is produced with Viola undisguised in the role of Juliet to Will's gentle Romeo until they are separated at the behest of Queen Elizabeth I (Dame Judi Dench).

Among the many little joys in the film are the bevy of supporting performances for which it is as well known as it is for the Oscar-winning central role of Gwyneth Paltrow. Geoffrey Rush is a by-the-seat-of-his-pants theatrical promoter and producer, Ben Affleck shows up (without billing) as the troupe's lead actor, Simon Callow plays a rival promoter and producer and Rupert Everett has a cameo as Christopher Marlowe. These four supports are indeed part of an ensemble of brilliance yet it must be noted that the critical establishment wholly and unfairly ignored Joseph Fiennes work upon which the movie spins.

Somehow turning the movie into a showcase for Gwyneth Paltrow is both a celebration of her performance and a slap in the face of her co-star who necessarily carries a similar burden. Because she shines and was singled out for her contributions is open for half-hearted argument. That Fiennes was overlooked, however, is a slight to his version of Will Shakespeare who becomes both a passionate man and a genius.

Regardless, the strength of the film is its writing pedigree as the dream child of Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard working in tandem. Their dialogue is crisp and the script manages to convey a backstage musical-like plotline without relying on song to advance the plot. Instead the process of assembling theatrical tragedy is the substance with which the movie is held together just as the wonderful chemistry of Fiennes and Paltrow leads the film to its end.

Earning some $100 million at the domestic box office and some $180 million in its international release Shakespeare in Love also managed to legitimize the long-pursued goal of a Best Picture Oscar for Miramax Films.