Somebody finally did ROMEO AND JULIET right!

Rating: Null/10 (15 September 2003)

The problem with most productions of this play is that they concentrate so much on one aspect---the love-talk between the two principals---that they seriously distort what the tragedy is really about. The play's not just about hearts and flowers, it's also about the senselessness of wars and feuds for the sake of wars and feuds, pride, power-hunger, and the self-perpetuating nature of these evil forces and how they destroy everything good and beautiful that comes in the way. Now THAT'S a tragedy which the 20th and 21st centuries should be able to relate to, and it gives ROMEO AND JULIET a contemporary relevance which this film brought out beautifully.
Far too much is made of the fact that the director gave the play a modern setting. Shakespeare modernized his settings, and there's no reason we can't do the same: Shakespeare gives HAMLET, for example, an Elizabethan setting even though the original Hamlet is supposed to have lived in pre-Viking and pagan times. Modern settings are entirely appropriate to Shakespeare.
I think Danes and DiCaprio are perfectly cast, and I think the Bard would approve. Romeo is suitably impulsive, unintellectual but very plain and honest about his love, just the right combination of punky and sensitive, while Juliet is---well, Juliet. This film has by far the best Tybalt I've ever seen, while Father Laurence all but steals the show. The cast is uniformly fine (except Romeo's sidekick Mercutio wasn't there at all; Zeferelli did much better to make him into an aging stud).
Nothing's perfect. I must admit I don't see the point of moving Juliet's famous balcony scene into a swimming pool, especially since Luhrman's device of the night watchman with his searchlight could have been exploited to great effect. (At the same time, the way Romeo breathes down Juliet's neck as he says "Wilt thou then leave me so unsatisfied?", and her wary, just-a-minute,-what's-going-on-here response, "What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?", a.k.a. "Is this for real or are you just horny?", and the way in which her riposte seems to make him stumble mentally and revise his approach,was one of the film's best moments; I don't think this rather thoughtful touch could have executed by way of the traditional staging). Also, I wish the film hadn't cut the reconciliation between the Hatfield and McCoy patriarchs, with its attendant "What a lousy waste!" mood. Oddly, Zefirelli cut those few lines also. Go figure.
No one film can do justice to a Shakespearean tragedy, of course. Buffs should see Zefirelli's film in tandem with this one, just as they should compare and contrast Branagh's and Olivier's HENRY V.