Now that my girls are in high school, they will inevitably have to read Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. When I bounced this off them, they announced that they didn’t want anything to do with it because it was “too old and stuffy.”
With that in mind, I dusted off a copy of 1996’s Romeo and Juliet by Australia’s own Baz Luhrmann. Buckle up girls, it’s going to be a wild ride…
The most striking thing about the 1996 Romeo and Juliet adaption is the bright, chaotic setting, with fair Verona now reimagined as a 90s Californian beachfront city, the warring clans now mafioso-style corporate gangs. Luhrmann puts maximalist Catholic iconography on every flat surface with the enthusiasm of a teenage girl using a Bedazzler, and I loved every moment of it. Gone is the dusty world of stilted acting in stockings and tights, Luhrmann depicting the drug-fuelled, rowdy Capulets and Montagues with the same approach as a gangland thriller. When the film opens with one of the Montagues trying to lick his own nipple piercings in front of a nun, you know this is not going to be the usual retelling.
Personally, I think old William S would have had an absolute ball.
As for the girls, they were at turns horrified and spellbound – this isn’t what Shakespeare plays are like, is it? One of the themes that Luhrmann leant heavily into was how much disaster can befall the bad decisions of dumb, horny teenagers, every thoughtless, passionate encounter making their situation progressively worse. I thoroughly approve. Thankfully, so did the girls, who came away from the film with the declaration that Romeo is a “Red Flag” guy, and killing yourself in a church is not a great way to deal with your problems.
Actually, I’d love for future directors to lean into this. Let’s cut the “star-crossed lovers” crap and tell a dark horror of the twisted romance between Romeo “Red Flag” Montague and Juliet “Death Wish” Capulet. As for my girls, I think I’ve proven that the classics are a lot darker and grittier than they think.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts below!
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