William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet ***** (1996, Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, John Leguizamo) – Classic Movie Review 438

Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes play the star-crossed lovers and touch the heart in a glorious pop-video age version of the ever-popular William Shakespeare classic play. Director Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 delight is an utterly exhilarating, supremely inventive, terrifically enjoyable modern version of the story. Sweeping you up in the passion of the famous story, he makes it fresh again and makes it a truly romantic experience.

Romeo + Juliet is led by a sweeping-off-your-feet performance by DiCaprio as a young and puppyish-looking Romeo Montague and a powerful turn by Danes as an intense and sombre Juliet Capulet. Luhrmann keeps the original dialogue but boldly updates the play to the modern-day suburb of Verona beach in Florida. There the rival families of the Montagues and the Capulets wage gun war on the streets as the two young members of the opposing families fall dangerously in love.

Luhrmann clearly delights in the subject, the language, the visuals, the music and his extravagant use of a big-studio budget. He relishes his actors too. There’s superlative support acting, especially from John Leguizamo’s Tybalt and Harold Perrineau’s Mercutio, plus Britain’s Pete Postlethwaite as the friar Father Laurence and Miriam Margolyes as the (Spanish maid) nurse.

The verse is spoken in American, but all due respect is paid to it and DiCaprio is particularly clear and directional in his verse speaking. He scores a huge personal success here.

Drag, disco, guns – what would old Shakespeare have made of it? It’s entertaining, imaginative and oddly respectful to the text. Why wasn’t it like this at school? Achieving both an enormous artistic success and a huge box-office hit represents quite a feat.

Also notable in the special cast are Brian Dennehy (Ted Montague), Christina Pickles (Caroline Montague), Paul Sorvino (Fulgencio Capulet), Diane Venora (Gloria Capulet), Paul Rudd (Dave Paris), Jesse Bradford (Balthasar) and M Emmet Walsh (Apothecary).

The 1976 disco song Young Hearts Run Free sung by Kym Mazelle made the 1997 charts again.

Previous versions in 1936, 1954, 1968, 1974, 1988, all as Romeo and Juliet.

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 438

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