Y’know what is great about this movie? The soundtrack! Maybe I’m getting old but the soundtrack still kind of sounds really cool even today. I think more than anything else it’s just because Luhrman knows how to pick his songs, but everything just plays perfectly within the film and kind of transcends its mid-90sness.
Y’know what else is great about this movie? The attention to detail! The production on this thing is insane and I’m not just talking about its kinetic style. Everything in this film is utterly stylised from the billboards, to the graffiti on houses, to the skyline of Verona itself. I only noticed when watching on Blu-Ray that all of the billboards and adverts are written in Shakespearan English, it’s a fantastic touch and it really kind of adds verisimilitude to the entire thing.
Y’know what doesn’t really work about this? The actors! In my view we’ve got three different acting types in the film. We’ve got one group (represented by Paul Sorvino) who are reciting the dialogue like they’re on stage, giving it full on Shakespearan affectation. We’ve got another group (represented by Harold Perrineau and Diane Venora) who modernise the dialogue, treating the dialogue like its modern parlance. Then you’ve got a final group who are just saying their words without really conveying the dialogue. Claire Danes does this a few times where she essentially rabbits out sentence after sentence without any rhythm whatsoever. As such you have an odd sort of energy to the film where certain actors feel too classical in their delivery and certain actors don’t feel like they’re delivering lines at all.
I still kind of love the film though, I think the hyper-kinetic energy serves the first two acts really well and it means that when the film does change gears for its ending the emotions really work. I think the problem is that both DiCaprio and Danes are kind of outmatched by their supporting cast at times. They’re both kind of stiff in their roles (and I say this as someone who loves 90% of everything else both actors have done) and that stiffness is kind of amplified when they’re together. Danes’ scenes with her nanny are nice and naturalistic, whilst DiCaprio is fantastic when playing against the more over-the-top Montague boys and Perrineau’s Mercutio. But when they’re together the energy gets sucked out of the scene.
I do think the highlight of the film is Perrineau as Mercutio. Mercutio as written is a counterpoint to Romeo, expressing his wants and desires at will whilst Romeo remains trapped within himself. In the context of 17th Century England they’re essentially just friends. However modern audiences have often taken Mercutio’s affections for Romeo as hints of something else and Perrineau kind of plays up that ambiguity. There’s a sort of petulance to Perrineau’s performance which suggests that he’s actually in love with Romeo, it’s not particularly overt but there’s definitely an undercurrent and it works really well within Luhrman’s vision of the play.
