Product: Romeo and Juliet [Region 2] (1968)
Rating: 5.0
Best Adaptation Yet
This adaptation of William Shakespear's Romeo and Juliet is by far the best ever! This adaptation is the one true one that follows the play so closely that you can take whole scenes and follow along with a book. While watching this, I opened the book we had and could read word for word what the actor was going to say. Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting had such great chemistry that you didn't even realize that you were watching a play. It seemed more as if you were watching two of your friends in the same room. They brought their characters to life better than anyone else who ever portrayed these two did. The other thing that made this movie so enjoyable was the lighting. Normally, we are used to bad things happening in dark places whereas in this version of the movie, bad things happen in broad day light and in the middle of the market square in front of tons of witnesses. This gives the movie an interesting tone as a viewer is not used to it. Franco Zeffirelli does a beautiful job directing this, getting exactly the emotions he wants. In other versions of the play, the couple who portrays Romeo and Juliet are either too old or too young. These two, Olivia and Leonard, are just the age that a reader of Romeo and Juliet expect them to be. And they act just like it. They are star crossed lovers at the tender teen-age years. Everyone knows the plot of Romeo and Juliet, yet the way it is carried out in this adaptation is unlike any I've ever seen. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in William Shakespear and any of the adaptations. It might be little harder to understand because the language is the one of old, but the way it is presented is so wonderful that you lose yourself in the acting that you don't need to pay that much attention to the words. You can listen with your heart.