You can not order the pre-fix menu at a 5 star restaurant and have delivered to your table a burger and fries. Cold rubbery fries. The concept of this film is enticing. The execution was not so successful. For as many liberties as were taken with Shakespeare's masterpiece one simple and useful one, would have been to change "Juliet" to "Julien". You wouldn't even have had to ruin the title to do this. Because the actor playing "Juliet" was a man, there seemed to be a concerted effort to not weaken, feminize, or subdue his demeanor. This produced a complete lack of polarity, or Ying and Yang, in the relationship which rendered the romance impotent.
And so you have a very sincere attempt at a "Romeo and Juliet" that is devoid of tectonic passion between the two main characters. And they don't die in the end. This project came across, even at it's best moments, more as an open reading of the play than a rendering of what it in reality truly is, the greatest love story ever written.
There are some excellent performances in this film. Josh Neff as Mercutio/Capulet, Adam Barrie as Friar Lawrence, Omar Madsen as the nurse, were powerful at moments when allowed by the direction. The actors for the title characters seemed hamstrung by either misdirection or unsuitability for the roles. In the end it didn't even matter that they didn't die tragically because there was no great loss of love. I'm not even sure that they survived to love at all. They seemed drawn to one another. That's not sufficient for a rendering of a Shakespeare classic on the margins of society.
I think this could have been really amazing. But when Romeo and Juliet are not driven to defy everything in their lives for their love, their complete and consuming love is not battered by tragedy and death, and they do not die unnecessarily and tragically at the end, I'm really not sure what's left. It seemed here, not much.
And so you have a very sincere attempt at a "Romeo and Juliet" that is devoid of tectonic passion between the two main characters. And they don't die in the end. This project came across, even at it's best moments, more as an open reading of the play than a rendering of what it in reality truly is, the greatest love story ever written.
There are some excellent performances in this film. Josh Neff as Mercutio/Capulet, Adam Barrie as Friar Lawrence, Omar Madsen as the nurse, were powerful at moments when allowed by the direction. The actors for the title characters seemed hamstrung by either misdirection or unsuitability for the roles. In the end it didn't even matter that they didn't die tragically because there was no great loss of love. I'm not even sure that they survived to love at all. They seemed drawn to one another. That's not sufficient for a rendering of a Shakespeare classic on the margins of society.
I think this could have been really amazing. But when Romeo and Juliet are not driven to defy everything in their lives for their love, their complete and consuming love is not battered by tragedy and death, and they do not die unnecessarily and tragically at the end, I'm really not sure what's left. It seemed here, not much.