Intriguing and clever, but maybe too clever

Rating: 7/10 (4 June 2000)

I like cross-period staging for Shakespeare - like Ian McKellen's Richard III or Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet. It always gives a good perspective on the strength of the underlying story. It can also be said that it gives the director something to do - like a post-WWI staging of Much Ado About Nothing - other than trot out the same costumes as from the last production.
I thought this version was very clever, but maybe more clever than it needed to be. The swimming pool scene (in place of the balcony scene), for example, was an inspired choice. The interaction was much more immediate: standing at a balcony is a scene designed for a stage, not for a movie. But the sense of the scene is also lost. By this time in the movie, the two have already fallen in the deepest love they will ever have (whatever that means - lust is more like it), and the action falls from there. But the play implies much more of a process, instead of proof. The balcony scene is that of two lovers parted by circumstance, both literally and figuratively. The meaning is changed, though subtly, and not necessarily for the better.
I didn't like many of the start-stop and fast-forward camera tricks, not because they are a bad idea in themselves, but because the style negates the scenes they were intended to augment. I especially did not like the faux dramatic echoing noises. There's no need for these tricks. I also found the second half of the movie to be rather tame in terms of technique. Most of the shots after the swimming pool scene are rather bland and ordinary. It was as if the director had used up all of his tricks and couldn't think of any others.
All I can say is thank God that Shakespeare's language was used. Without the language there is no reason for this movie to even be made - it turns the story from a ludicrous mob war to the intriguing version of RJ it is now.