Romeo + Juliet, an actual staging of Shakespeare

 

Romeo + Juliet is a 1996 movie directed by Baz Luhrmann.

This movie is an adaptation of the play Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare, this movie kept the original text written by Shakespeare BUT it is set in an actual setting which make this adaptation really interesting thanks to this high difference between the language and the place.

The story happens at Verona Beach, a poor suburb of Los Angeles, where there's tensions between two families: the Capulets and the Montagues.

The Capulets make a party in which they want their daughter, Juliet (Claire Danes), to meet her fiancé Paris (Paul Rudd); Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio) came to this party with his friends who dragged him in there after he broke up with his last girlfriend Rosaline.

When Romeo and Juliet meet during this party they fall in love at first sight, they don't say a single word but the eyes say everything.

After the party Romeo sneaks into the Capulets' garden to see Juliet once more and he promises her that they will meet again the next day.

Romeo gets to Father Laurence (Pete Postlethwaite) to ask him to get him married with Juliet, he agrees because he sees this marriage as a gift of peace between the families.

After their wedding Romeo killed Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, after he killed his best friend even though he didn't want to touch him because he just got married with Juliet and knew how hurt she would be if Tybalt died. So once he made this huge mistake he ran from Verona Beach.

After the murder of Tybalt the Capulets hurried the wedding of Juliet and Paris for the next day. Juliet asks desperately to Father Laurence something to avoid this wedding because she's already married and she still loves Romeo after what he has done.

Father Laurence gave her a poison that will make her sleep in a certain way that she will seem dead to everyone until the next evening.

Father Laurence sends a letter to Romeo to warn him of the plan and to tell him to get Juliet the next evening. Romeo never got this letter and doesn't know about the plan so when he knew about Juliet's death he ran to Verona Beach to kill himself next to his lover.

Unluckily Juliet woke up a second too late because she saw Romeo dying in front of her so she committed suicide by using Romoe's gun.

I love this adaptation because it doesn't try to remain close to Shakespeare's time but it wants to be closer to ours to tempt younger people to see it and having Leonardo DiCaprio was even more tempting for teenagers when it was released.

Staging this play in our actual society gives another reading of the play.

5/5 The fact of using the original text with an actual setting was daring because the gap between the two was extremely large but is well done it doesn't alter the meaning of the text because Baz Luhrmann wanted to keep it. You see very well the touch of Baz Luhrmann in this movie with all the colors and it gives the effect of a fake joy.