THE STORY -In an epic journey of battles and betrayal, set amidst the birth of the Italian Renaissance and the wars that would end the Middle Ages, prepare for the world’s most famous lovers to turn the tides on history as we know it.
THE CAST – Clara Rugaard, Jamie Ward, Jason Isaacs, Dan Fogler, Rebel Wilson, Rupert Graves & Derek Jacobi
THE TEAM – Timothy Scott Bogart (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 122 Minutes
Something is rotten in the state of Verona. Forgive me for mixing up my Shakespearean references, but that’s exactly what “Juliet & Romeo” makes a habit of doing. The latest cinematic adaptation of the greatest romantic suicide pact in literary history cannot be called anything close to faithful. Despite plopping its actors in a version of 14th-century Italy and draping them in Renaissance fabrics, it is closer to a CW teen soap than a classic version of the tale of the preeminent star-crossed lovers. The dialogue is modern, the songs are ready for Spotify, and the plot completely reshuffles and reinterprets nearly every detail of the story. Does this lead to an exciting and fresh version of “Romeo and Juliet” that shakes up the centuries-old material in an effective contemporary way, a la Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 masterpiece? No. Nearly every element of this film simply doesn’t work. To misquote the original Romeo, it profanes the Bard’s masterpiece with its unworthiest hand.
To those familiar with the story of “Romeo and Juliet” – that is, anyone who’s taken a high school English class, snapped along to “West Side Story,” or seen “The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride” – buckle up. From the very beginning, “Juliet & Romeo” makes it aggressively clear that this is not the story you know. But the overarching plot elements remain the same: two young members of a pair of feuding families fall in love despite the apparent danger, and, after a sitcom-like mixup involving potions, poisons, and the plague, they kill themselves in a tomb and bring their families together through their untimely deaths. But while there are plenty of familiar character names like Mercutio and Tybalt, the story’s beats have been remixed or completely altered. For example, the titular lovers no longer meet at a masked ball, initially unaware of each other’s identities, but instead very early in the film with full knowledge of their respective last names. Not to mention, Shakespeare’s poetic language is completely excised, only popping up in referential, mostly comedic ways; early on, Mercurtio asks “Where the hell are thou Romeo?”, which is a complete misread of the original play’s line asking “wherefore” meaning “why,” but to count such missteps in “Juliet & Romeo” would be a dizzying waste of time. Oh, and it’s a musical!
That’s right: in place of Shakespeare’s language and iambic pentameter, we’ve got songs. While this is far from a new tactic when it comes to Shakespearean adaptations, this “Romeo and Juliet” might have the most forgettable, tuneless songs of any version made thus far. The songs are an amorphous, unmemorable bunch of tunes seemingly constructed to make them as bland and TikTok-ready as possible. Take a drink every time a song starts with a cymbal roll or has a chorus mostly made up of “oh” s, and worms might soon be your chambermaids. Although the lyrics (those that could actually be understood when performed in the mumbly, modern pop manner used by most of the cast) change based on the situation, the tone, sound, and even tempo are almost entirely uniform throughout the film. Said lyrics are far from profound, such as when Juliet sings, “I believe in now, I believe in now this time,” right before taking her infamous shot of sleeping potion. At another point, all of the main female characters sing together in a proto-feminist wannabe anthem that features the cringe-worthy line, “I’m more than the role I play, at war every goddamn day.” In perhaps the most clunky piece of lyric writing, which unfortunately occurs during the most famous love scene in history, Juliet sings from her balcony, “Why do they always call it falling in love when the last thing you wanna do is fall?”
Jamie Ward, our Romeo, sings in an unnatural, forced manner that makes it awkwardly clear the energy he’s exerting to hit his notes. To hazard a guess, I’d blame this singing style on formative years spent listening to One Direction and the Jonas Brothers. It’s understandable why he’d affect this voice for a pop musical, but that doesn’t make it a pleasant listen. And when not singing, his characterization is limp and uninteresting. It’s hard to see why Juliet, played by Clara Rugaard, would be so fatally into him. Rugaard fares better, portraying Juliet as headstrong and charming. Although her singing voice varies in quality throughout the film – and even often within the same song – it’s generally pretty and much less exertive than Ward’s. Rebel Wilson, perplexingly, plays Juliet’s mother, Lady Capulet. In what must be a concerted effort to break from her public image, her Lady Capulet is humorless and dour, mostly sulking through the movie with a saddened expression. Even Wilson herself doesn’t seem convinced by the material despite likely being number one on the call sheet. In the other corner, Jason Isaacs is Romeo’s father, Lord Montague, delivering a performance that truly evaporated from my mind the second the credits rolled. Stage legend Sir Derek Jacobi, who plays the well-meaning but potentially guilty of manslaughter Friar, is undoubtedly the most accustomed to Shakespeare’s language of the cast – he has both a Tony and Olivier Award for acting in Shakespearean stage productions. But of course, here he’s not tasked with delivering such verse, although he brings the film some much-needed gravitas. He doesn’t sing, but he is uncomfortably forced to be present during the film’s worst number, performed by an exhausting Dan Fogler as the Apothecary. And credit must be given to Nicholas Podany for giving Mercutio the exact right amount of rascally, lovable energy. He’s winning enough to nearly forgive his cheesy, over-the-top death scene.
Director Timothy Scott Bogart most notably flexes his muscles with the cinematography. Although much of the film is lit with garish-colored lights, there are some admittedly impressive overhead shots. They’re not always placed in an intelligible spot in the edit, which can feel disorienting, but they at least show some effort. The same cannot be said of the general designs, especially the costumes, which are all very brightly colored and look perfectly maintained as if they just came out of the proverbial box. The sometimes-modern, sometimes-vaguely-of-yesteryear hair and makeup are also generally unfortunate. Juliet’s flat center part hair is particularly grim.
Again, to misquote one of this film’s misquotes, wherefore make this film in this way? Why even bother making this a Romeo and Juliet story at all? “Juliet & Romeo” lacks the romantic rush of Shakespeare’s original, which, when told through his still-effective poetry, is impactful to this day when done correctly (see all the many different adaptations happening today). In place of his timeless words are atrocious, bland pop songs assembled with loud instrumentals and unpleasant, obviously pitch-corrected vocals. Because the original play’s plot has been restructured, it isn’t easy to predict what will come next, but it does mean that once the lovers enter the tomb, the audience will feel relieved. For viewers who make it that far into “Juliet & Romeo,” parting won’t be such sweet sorrow; it will just be sweet relief following two hours of sorrow.
