The Film Reports

Rating: 3.8

Drama, Romance

There is probably only one way you heard of this and that is about how critically panned this film was. It’s the curse of Shakespeare adaptations, nobody is ever quite happy with it. But this film isn’t actually that terrible. It’s not terrible at all, to be honest.

In this adaptation, Romeo is played by Douglas Booth and Juliet is Hailee Steinfeld. I can completely understand why these two have been cast. Booth is obviously a teen heartthrob (do people still use that term?), and Steinfeld is both innocent and beautiful. Apparently there’s been criticism that Douglas Booth is “too pretty” which is… pretty funny. There was one thing that I noticed though, and that is, they look very similar to each other. I don’t know what it is, but it was kind of distracting and slightly weird. Other than that, I really liked these two as the leads.

The supporting cast is all excellent too. One of my favourite characters was Nurse (Lesley Manville). Benvolio is played by a very young Kodi Smit-Mcphee and is one of the strongest parts of the film. In this adaption, Mercutio’s (Christian Cooke) wise-cracking is non-existent and instead, Benvolio has an expanded role which is more dramatic than comedic. I didn’t personally mind but I can see why Mercutio’s lighter role may be seen as necessary to counterbalance the main storyline.

Other than that, this film closely follows the play, apart from some minor, minor changes. One of these minor changes is that the dialogue has been reworked so that the constant monologuing in the text isn’t in the film (good riddance, I think) and I think some parts may have also been reworded so it’s clearer to a modern audience. I’m not mad about it. I think the aim of this film was a teenage-friendly Romeo and Juliet and by reworking the dialogue, it becomes way easier to understand which means that R+J has a new audience. Which is good news.

The only, only negative I have about this film is the ending, where Romeo finds Juliet in the Capulet tombs. I think this is where a monologue by Romeo would have been appreciated. The whole scene is wrapped up very quickly and so what should’ve been the peak of the film, where all the tension comes to a head, is very anti-climatic unfortunately. 

In conclusion, it’s a good version of the play. It did exactly what it set out to do which was to be a R+J for teens. It’s still the exact same storyline, just very slightly tweaked. This is probably not going in my favourites list, but I would definitely be up for watching this again.

Watch it: This is a daytime film, watch it on a sunny day.