Altogether an odd film

Rating: Null/10 (15 August 2004)

A quite disturbing, but central, theme is the excruciating juxtaposition of Shakespeare's language with a set that itself is dynamic, regularly alienating the viewer by injecting continually new and intra-anachronistic points-of-reference, set in the archetypal image of 1950s' USA, so much so that it achieves a high level of self-parody. The discomfort sits so heavily that it deafens out the theme of joyous-blighted young love that the film is supposed to be about. The film is played without love.
Our Juliet (Claire Danes) is often inaudible. This is unfortunate, as there is no frisson in the body languages between her and her Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio): there is no passion evident in the affair. In both the "bedroom" scenes (night and morning after), grossly unsubtle heavy-handedness ensured that the audience was not to be presented with the full panoply of Juliet's breasts. Is this a cinematic retro respective to the 1950s? We think not: it is, rather, a successful attempt to ensure that the youth-DiCaprio market would not be prevented from seeing the film by a rating higher than PG-13. Oh, this film was made in 1996. The "other" Romeo & Juliet was made (in sumptuous velvachrome Ã la Franco Zeffireli) - my maths tells me - twenty-eight years earlier in 1968. It is a truism that the '96 will be compared with the '68 - a truism because it already has been. In 1968, the audience was bravely offered a glimpse of Olivia Hussey. Appropriate, certainly. Coy, yes. In love with Romeo? Absolutely!
I make a meal of the issue as I see it as an indication, in the '96, of an aura of repression in cinema, and as a reflection of a society as a whole (as well as the whiff of profit), in the director's distinct lack of sex in the "sex" scenes. It might be self-censorship, but it is predicated on societal censorship. Is society pulling back from the freedoms won by the 1960s?
The quality of acting varies wildly throughout. The younger actors struggled with the text. The older actors took their parts brilliantly.
I've blasted it, perhaps, but would I recommend it? Yes. It is a coherent film and does offer a significant interpretation of the play. As I say, altogether an odd film.