Film Journal: Romeo + Juliet (1996)
dir. Baz Luhrmann
This journal was originally written on March 24, 2015 for a high school English class assignment.
If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking and you beat love down.
Set in the 90’s hip modern urban area of Verona Beach, Baz Luhrmann adapted the classic Shakespeare’s play Romeo & Juliet into “Romeo + Juliet”. “Romeo + Juliet” is a romantic-tragedy movie blended with some action and comedy released in 1996. Luhrmann recruited fresh stars Leonardo DiCaprio & Claire Danes to play the star-crossed lovers role and some prominent actors such as Paul Sorvino and Pete Postlethwaite to fill the line-up. The movie was nominated for 1 Oscar in the category of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration.
Begins with a TV News Anchor reading the story of Romeo and Juliet and the ancient grudge between two houses: The Montagues and The Capulets; in a broadcast which followed by a recap of the whole movie. How terrible the feud between the two houses is shown by the brawl between the two in a gas station which disturbs the whole city. One day, one of the Montague, Romeo and his friend Mercutio go to a party held by the Capulets. There he meets a beautiful girl whose name we known as Juliet, they both fall in love. Found out that they came from the two warring sides, they decide to secretly get married as witnessed by Father Laurence. The love story keeps flowing and turns tragic according to the original plot of the story.
The plot used in the story, however can’t really affect your judgment towards the movie. You might have expected how the story ends. What makes the movie good or bad is how Luhrmann executes the original story to be something that is purely his work. The way he modifies the medieval Romeo & Juliet into his 90’s version of the movie is actually good enough to pull some 90’s teens and get them into Shakespeare. The movie may be unforgettable due to its relevancy to the 90’s cultural references. For instance, the first brawl scene at the gas station. The MTV-style editing, the Hawaiian shirts, pink hair, ecstasy, absurd comedy, pimped cars, those music by Garbage, Radiohead and the Cardigans, 17 years old Claire Danes, Leonardo DiCaprio in middle parting hair, these things are what make “Romeo + Juliet” can be a 90’s teens classic, or at least people can have nostalgia when watching this movie years after because of the appearance of these stuff in the movie, not because it’s the modern version of Romeo & Juliet.
The thing that really bothers me throughout the movie is that while he replaces so many ancient things into modern stuff like from sword to guns, yet Luhrmann looks like he’s too imposing the actors to speak in Shakespeare’s language while wearing Hawaiian shirts, which is awfully awkward. Especially for the two main actors here. I believe changing the dialogue won’t be such a big deal since it’s a modern adaptation of the story.
Overall it’s a mediocre movie, pretty innovative in style yet it offers nothing more. It’s dull and somehow a bit messy in terms of adapting the elements of ancient story into a modern life setting. You might enjoy watching an almost 2 hours of Leonardo DiCaprio if you’re a fangirl of his, or you could have a heavy dose of nostalgia if you were of the 90s kids, and for the rest of us who’s especially into movie and literature, you might found nothing interesting from this movie.
