Shakespeare in Love (1998) - Details

Will Shakespeare's life is going badly. His love life is a shambles, he's always short of money, and worst of all, he has writer's block. He's supposed to be nearly finished his newest play, "Romeo and Ethel the Sea Pirate's Daughter", but in fact he hasn't written a line. At a sham audition for the play, he admires a new actor, Thomas Kent, who suddenly runs away. Soon Shakespeare meets Viola de Lesseps, who lives in the same stately home as Thomas; it's love at first sight and he's inspired to begin writing the play. But by the time he realizes that Thomas is Viola in disguise, she's promised in marriage to a lord which means that Queen Elizabeth herself expects the marriage to happen. But Will and Viola find their attraction too strong to resist; they risk the wrath of her fiance with a clandestine affair, and of the law against women on stage by having "Thomas" play Romeo. No wonder he ends up changing the play into a tragedy…