Romeo & Juliet: An Unfortunate Rehashing

I remember sitting in a rather dilapidated theatre as a high school freshman when throngs of English students, in place of doing an inevitably boring table-read of the play, were treated to a screening of the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet. Directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, that film stunned our adolescent minds with its depiction of nubile lovers in a hostile world. We were swept away by the soaring musical leitmotifs, the Italian locations, the men in very tight tights, or, in the case of Juliet, sometimes not wearing any clothes at all. I felt proud to be the only one noticing that angry Tybalt, played by Michael York, would grow up to be the much mellower Basil Exposition of the Austin Powers series. The Zeffirelli film confirmed that it is possible to make a faithful adaptation without sacrificing the dramatic immediacy and urgency necessary to make the tale compelling. What occurs to me now is that I can more vividly recall scenes from that version, which I haven’t seen since, better than the latest iteration. Directed by Carlo Carlei and written by Julian Fellowes, this Romeo and Juliet is serviceable at its most captivating moments; at its worst, it is forgettable, lamentable, and regrettable.

Anyone needing a recapitulation of the plot of Romeo and Juliet must have slept through English class or its substitute screening. Nonetheless, here it is: In the midst of an ongoing feud between their families, the Capulets and the Montagues, Juliet and Romeo meet at a costume ball and fall instantly in love. Despite the noble assistance of a friar and a nurse, their star-crossed love affair is beset by violence, misunderstandings, and poison. Suffice it to say, the story does not end in multiple weddings.

The film's production is enhanced by shooting in the real Verona, gaining the authenticity of centuries-old frescoes and stone edifices that likely would have been standing back in the 1590s. The cast is a mix of American and English actors, many of whom evince their classical training in confident command of the language, such as Paul Giamatti as Friar Laurence and Damian Lewis as Juliet’s father (who currently plays opposite the previous Juliet, Claire Danes, in Homeland, which is probably meaningless but still worth noting). In the role of Juliet, Hailee Steinfeld is almost as young as the original role, written as 13. In the role of Romeo, Douglas Booth is clearly older, and the differences in age and maturity sometimes dampen the romance, although it’s not for lack of trying. Wonderful actors such as Stellan Skarsgard and Lesley Manville also contribute to the ensemble, and the marvelous Natascha McElhone plays a more sympathetic Lady Capulet in her limited screen time. Unfortunately, the uneven cast must occupy a city whose streets are often empty. Despite going on location and portraying the Italian environment with lush production design and effective cinematography, some of the action feels like rote choreography on a soundstage. The swordfight between Tybalt and Mercutio takes place in a seemingly abandoned corner of the city rather than in the heart of the town square. It becomes hard to believe and thus invest in the world of these characters. As such, from the highs of their burgeoning love to the lows of their tragic deaths, nothing in this Romeo and Juliet quite lands and hits the audience in the heart or the gut.

Film and Shakespeare go together like Verona and romance, which is to say, only some of the time does it work out merrily. Certainly the notion that the works of William Shakespeare can still play on the big screen to a captivated audience is not unfounded. Look to Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing for proof. But for every Raiph Fiennes’ Coriolanus, there is one like Julie Taymor’s The Tempest. Unless you are Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, or Kenneth Branagh, it is is best to tread cautiously when adapting the Bard. And Julian Fellowes, despite his success with Gosford Park and Downton Abbey, will not go on to occupy that rarefied cadre. He edits and chops the original text under the guise of modernizing and clarifying it for younger audiences, but the end result is an uneven mélange of unwieldy new aphorisms and less elegant rephrasings. The low point is a line involving Hell and good intentions. Some of Shakespeare’s lines may have become repeated so much that they now seem to be clichés, but he did not invent that one.

            It doth give me pain to declare

            that the new Romeo and Juliet is, at best, only fair.

The question that has to be asked: Why did this telling of Romeo and Juliet need to happen? The Baz Luhrmann version, while bombastic and taking liberties in transposing the setting to a surrogate for Miami, stayed largely faithful to the text and became the definitive version for most teenagers and twenty-somethings in the Nineties. It did occur to me a few times that this pair could serve as the Romeo and Juliet for the Twilight generation. The tagline, proclaiming this “The most dangerous love story ever told,” evokes the tendency for melodrama in impassioned teenaged girls. And yet this version isn’t dangerous. Aside from Paul Giamatti’s devastated discovery of the dead lovers, there are few moments to make you wither out of passion or pity. Ultimately this version may take up the mantle from the Zeffirelli version in one key respect: at just over two hours, it will likely become the film that gets shown the most in high school English classes for years to come. It’s unfortunate that students won’t get the full experience of Romeo and Juliet, for this iteration is the equivalent of Cliffs Notes.