Young love can be so tragic sometimes...
However, I am pretty sure Verona did not really look like this during the Renaissance. But that was what I enjoyed most about this movie – how beautiful it was. The exterior shots with the buildings and landscapes were so lovely and no surprise because it was actually filmed in Italy, including in Verona. The costumes are colorful and ornate and let’s not forget the comely leads. I was a huge fan of True Grit and Hailee Steinfeld in that movie but I imagine the Academy Award-nominated actress must have enjoyed the opportunity to take on quite a different character and get all girly for the role of Juliet. However, I believe the basically unknown Douglas Booth as our dear Romeo probably surpassed all others in the pretty department as he looked like the long lost best-looking member of boy band One Direction.
To remind you of the plot: Romeo (Booth) attends, uninvited, a masquerade party at rival family Capulet’s manor and there he meets Juliet (Steinfeld). The two instantly fall in love and after hurried kisses plus a stealthy nighttime visit, decide to marry in secret the next day, despite the fact that their families have feuded for generations and shed much of one another’s blood. You know the rest.
Romeo and Juliet boasts some other rather notable cast members including a sweet and funny Paul Giamatti as Friar Lawrence, an under used pompous looking Stellan Skarsgård as the Prince of Verona, and Damian Lewis of Homeland fame sporting a bad haircut and over acting as Juliet’s father, Lord Capulet. Gossip Girl fans will be pleased to see Ed Westwick on the big screen as Juliet’s firebrand of a cousin, Tybalt.
All the above sets the mood well for the audience to lose themselves in the classic romantic tragic tale. But for today’s audience, it’s just too ridiculous to imagine two people falling in love after meeting for two minutes and the next day deciding to run off and get married. Especially at the age of thirteen (good thing Steinfeld and Booth aren’t actually that young). In fact, some of the audience laughed out of incredulity during the famous Juliet balcony scene.
Notwithstanding suspension of disbelief, the acting was quite solid. Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey!) adapted the play for the screen and Steinfeld and Booth come across as very likeable protagonists that I wanted to root for (despite knowing very well they are absolutely doomed). The actors delivered the Shakespearean dialogue with the appropriate amount of humor and emotion, in a way that made it very accessible and unstilted. Of course this could also be due to the fact that Fellowes made quite a few controversial alterations and additions to the dialogue of the original play, though still closely following the plot. I certainly don’t remember the play verbatim so I guess his changes worked for me and were not obvious enough in their incongruity. Unfortunately, the acting (not to mention Steinfeld’s eyebrows and Booth’s heavy makeup job) was interrupted by the distracting editing – something else that induced giggles from the audience. A scene of romantic bliss would be juxtaposed with one of ominous violence and a fuming Tybalt wielding a mace.
Recommendation: don’t watch this movie as a substitute for reading the play. Rather, go after you read it and then lose yourself in the Italian countryside for a few hours.
Wherefore art thou Romeo?
Ed Westwick plays a mean and angry cousin!
Paul Giamatti almost pulls it off!
Douglass is almost as pretty as Hailee.
