Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie Review

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. Unless, of course, it's a corpse flower.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 8, 2014

An old Twilight Zone episode called “The Bard”, the last of that series’ relatively short-lived hour long outings, posited what would happen if William Shakespeare were to be magically conjured up from his grave to write for television. Rod Serling’s typically trenchant sense of humor runs rampant through the episode as that seemingly eternal conflict of Art versus Commerce rears its ugly head, and Commerce gives Art the walloping that studio executives (and unctuous sponsors) seem to think it deserves. But let’s spend just a moment reacquainting ourselves with some real Shakespeare, the immortal lines that open Romeo and Juliet’s Act II, Scene II:

Rom. But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady; O! it is my love:
O! that she knew she were.
She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.

I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See! how she leans her cheek upon her hand:

O! that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.

Jul. Ay me!

Rom. She speaks:
O! speak again, bright angel; for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wond’ring eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,

And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Rom. [Aside.] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
Jul. ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Rom. I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d;

Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Buried within that dense yet gorgeous verbiage is a rather heady critique of the philosophy of language itself. How, for example, do we learn to attach sounds to objects to create meaning? And is there an actual, objective connection between our language constructs and the external world? These matters are not purely theoretical when one comes to Shakespeare, for The Bard’s language is at once impenetrable and ineluctable, a wordy Mt. Everest that any serious lover of the English tongue must attempt to scale at least once in his or her life. Shakespeare’s accomplishments are so iconic, really the touchstone of poetic expression in English, that it almost beyond comprehension that anyone would want to jettison most of his text in one of his most legendary plays. And yet that’s exactly what Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park, Downton Abbey) has done with this mind boggling “new, (not exactly) improved” version of Romeo and Juliet. This approach plays like the flip side of that old Twilight Zone episode, with someone having the audacity to think they could improve upon Shakespeare's original work. Some may still be expecting Rod Serling to show up in any case to deliver a mordant commentary at the end of the film.

Romeo and Juliet has provided filmmakers with fodder for their particular “visions” from the earliest days of silent cinema. And in fact, many renditions of Shakespeare’s seemingly immortal play have become all time favorites, probably most notably the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli version (strangely yet to be released on domestic Blu-ray). Other versions, like the 1936 outing with Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard (obviously too old to be playing teenagers), or the 1954 Italian version, have their adherents, even if most agree that they’re not perfect realizations of Shakespeare’s work. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet was the last major cinematic reboot of Shakespeare, a manic, asynchronous approach evidently handcrafted for the ADD MTV generation. But even Luhrmann attempted to stay close to Shakespeare’s text. Fellowes has no such fealty, and gives the viewer what basically amounts to a CliffsNotes version of the play (one salient example being the text offered above, about 1/10th of which makes it through to the film).

There are a couple of saving graces here. Fellowes at least leaves most of the plot intact, and the film uses actual Verona locations to its benefit, beautifully recreating the story’s era with historical accuracy. Director Carlo Carlei offers a fair amount of visual flair, infusing an early jousting scene (yet another “improvement”) and things like a late giant push into Prince Escalus (Stellan Skarsgard) through an immense ceremonial hall with a sense of sweep and momentum. So, visually the film is often a treat. But that is more than offset by some anachronistic acting choices by the large and sometimes ungainly cast.

Hailee Steinfeld simply seems out of her element here. She’s certainly sweet enough, but even accepting the fact that she doesn’t have to voice Shakespeare’s often opaque language, her line readings are somehow redolent of a Valley Girl. Douglas Booth is somewhat better as Romeo, bringing a wounded vulnerability to the role and seeming to at least understand that this dialogue is supposed to be poetry. Paul Giamatti is fun as Friar Laurence, and Damian Lewis also rather good as Lord Capulet. Others don’t fare even as “well” as Steinfeld. A lot of the supporting Montagues and Capulets seem to think they’re in some sort of bizarre Italian flashback of a Beverly Hills 90210 episode. Their approaches are too hyperbolic and too contemporary for such a piece, even a piece cut and pasted out of a venerable original.

The biggest question facing this production is simply: why? Why so drastically alter Shakespeare’s original? Certainly vaunted filmmakers from the dawn of cinematic time have felt free to gently tweak The Bard’s work (Olivier’s renditions of iconic works like Hamlet and Richard III are prime examples). But to toss huge amounts of the original whole cloth into the trash bin? Is this hubris of an almost incomprehensible order, or merely some misguided attempt to “reinvent” the piece for a younger generation? No matter what the answer ultimately proves to be, this is not your father’s Romeo and Juliet. In fact, I’d argue it’s not really Romeo and Juliet at all.

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Romeo and Juliet is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Shot with the Arri Alexa on actual locations in Verona, Romeo and Juliet's most impressive overall feature is the beauty of its physical production, one which looks rather beautiful in high definition. The film is filled with a gorgeous array of colors, despite the fact that many of the costumes tend to be in dark brown and black tones. Some of the blues, reds and purples in this offering are extremely impressive looking, popping really well and in fact perhaps even better than might otherwise be the case due to the very fact that so many of the costumes are indeed rather dark. A lot of the film seems to have been shot under natural lighting conditions, or at least not overly artificial studio setups. A lot of the interior scenes appear to be lit only by candlelight, which gives a soft, amber glow to those sequences but rather surprisingly does not result in a major loss of fine detail. Contrast is strong, offering clarity in both the brightly lit outdoor scenes and the dimmer interior moments. Though a bit on the long side, the film breathes comfortably on this BD-50, aided by decent bitrates, and no obvious compression artifacts are apparent.

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Romeo and Juliet's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 has some great immersive moments—the thundering of the horse hooves in the opening joust, the quicksilver ring of blade hitting blade in some of the fencing scenes, and the chatter of crowds in the big masquerade ball sequence—but this is in essence a quiet, dialogue driven film, not really suitable fodder for huge surround activity. Everything is very cleanly presented here, and there is some nice, nuanced attention paid to discrete ambient environmental effects. A couple of the source cues fill the surrounds quite nicely as well.

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Romeo and Juliet: Cast and Crew (1080p; 3:15) features interviews interspersed with clips from the film.


• Romeo and Juliet: The Filmmaker's Vision (1080p; 3:51) offers interviews with Carlo Carlei and Julian Fellowes, among others. They seem quite convinced they've done remarkable work.


• Romeo and Juliet: Creating the Look (1080p; 3:39) looks at the film's admittedly gorgeous production design.


• Romeo and Juliet: Hair and Make-Up (1080p; 2:16) shows how historically appropriate styles were fashioned.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:26)

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Romeo and Juliet is incredibly handsome, and perhaps that visual acuity will be enough to recommend the film to some. But anyone who knows, let alone loves, Shakespeare's immortal text is going to spend large swaths of this film silently muttering to themselves, "Hey, what about [fill in the blank for any given missing text]". Fellowes, one of the most talented writers currently working, should have known better. This Blu-ray's technical merits are just fine for those who are interested in the film. Personally, I'm still waiting for the 1968 version to be released on Blu-ray.