When I sat down to view this 2025 film, I thought it would probably be just another telling of William Shakespeare’s tale of the “star crossed lovers of Verona,” with the reversal of their names. I was pleasantly surprised.
At least at first.
The story begins with a eulogy being delivered by Friar Lawrence (Derek Jacobi – “Gladiator II”) in church over the bodies of Romeo and Juliet. We are then taken back three days to the time when Juliet Capulet (Clara Rugaard – “Lets Get A Room”) has returned home after years away. She is smitten by a handsome young man, Romeo Montague (Jamie Ward – “The Last Supper”), whom she doesn’t know, nor he her. When they do realize that they belong to families that have been at each other’s throats for generations, they don’t care.
However, their families do care. Lord Capulet (Rupert Everett – “Legend Has It”) has plans for his daughter – she is to marry Paris (Dennis Andres – “Filling In”) a wealthy kinsman of the Prince of Verona. Meanwhile Romeo’s father, Lord Montague (Jason Isaacs – “The Death of Stalin”), is contemptuous of his son and seeks to shore up his own family in the face of a possible invasion by the armies of the Papacy.
The sets are sumptuous, truly evoking the medieval city of Verona in structure, costume, and festival, if not in filth, disease, and brutality. Most of the action takes place at night, so chambers and courts are romantically lit by candle and torch.
Numerous well known and competent actors fill the cast, and the archaic language of Shakespeare has been updated to make it easier for the modern ear to understand. Of course, that also means some of the poetry is gone.
The duel scenes are brutal and bloody, but there is no spilling of guts or gouged eyeballs onto the cobblestones. And all this is wrapped in a pleasant, rich, modernistic score.
And that’s where thing go wrong.
While beautiful, the score overwhelms frequently, especially during the songs (solos, duets, multi-voiced), and there are a lot of songs. Sadly, due to the excessive ebullience of the score, almost all the words of the songs were lost to me, and even though I used an auto-generated closed caption program, it came up with as many preposterous words as reasonable ones. The AI was as confused as I was.
Speaking of songs, this version of the Bard’s opus might as well be termed operatic, as the characters are constantly bursting into melodic, modernistic, stylistically identical strains.
Then there is the acting. The principals perform very well, especially Romeo. However, the Friar, especially in the early scenes is too wooden and pompous. Rupert Everett as Lord Capulet is wasted, given hardly any lines at all, while Jason Isaac as Lord Montague comes across as an unkempt, brutal schemer, again with too small a part. One highlight, although barely more than a humorous cameo, is delivered by Dan Fogler (“A Complete Unknown”) as a Jewish apothecary. He also performs the only enjoyable musical number.
The film is a tossup. I don’t assign numbers, but be prepared for a real test of your auditory perception if the copy I viewed is an accurate example. On the other hand, the acting is generally good and the sets and costumes are memorable.
Note: The film was actually shot in Mexico City and other environs, much like Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 version of “Romeo and Juliet.” No real Verona here.
Runtime: Two hours, two minutes
Availability: UK theaters June 11, worldwide thereafter
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