Seventh-grade English teachers, rejoice. You have a new movie to show the class that day you come in hung over and can’t deal.
This traditional-dress “Romeo and Juliet,” written by “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes, makes up in perfect hair and pillowy lips what it lacks in nuanced line readings. Stylistically, it may recall Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version— but that movie is, like, ancient.
Plus, this one has Chuck Bass — sorry, Ed Westwick — as Tybalt!
Shot on in Verona, Italy, the film’s locations are a good deal more genuine than the chemistry between its two leads. Hailee Steinfeld makes a glowing Juliet, complete with the unkempt eyebrows that signify her naivete, and Douglas Booth’s Romeo is an oddly perfect-looking specimen of young manhood, introduced while wearing a puffy shirt open to the navel and sculpting angstfully. (I found myself wishing Kodi Smit-McPhee, who plays Romeo’s fretting right-hand man Benvolio, had been cast as the lead instead — here’s a kid who looks like an actual gangly teenage boy).
The star-crossed couple dutifully delivers pining speeches to one another, but you never sense a frisson of attraction between them. When she says, “You kiss by the book,” it seems more like a neutral observation than a compliment. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare them to the sparks that flew between Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes back in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 “Romeo + Juliet,” but for anyone who’s seen it, I doubt that won’t happen.
Thankfully, two grown-ups turn in brief but quality performances: Damien Lewis (“Homeland”) plays Lord Capulet as a bit of a bipolar loose cannon (he’s good at that sort of thing), particularly in his reaction to his daughter’s refusal to marry Paris and then his giddy excitement when she seemingly agrees.
And Paul Giamatti, as Friar Laurence, seems to be enjoying acting circles around his young charges in that itchy-looking brown robe. At one point, he smacks the endlessly blathering Romeo upside the head — something I think we can all get together on enjoying.
Lesley Manville, as Juliet’s nurse, plays it straight instead of hamming it up as some do in the role; this is one version that might have benefitted from a bit more scenery-chewing from the veterans.
Meanwhile, the Sharks and the Jets prowl the city streets, led by Westwick’s nostril-flaring Tybalt and Christian Cooke’s capably jokey Mercutio. Nobody can run very well with a sword strapped on, and one brawl blends into another, until Stellan Skarsgard’s Prince of Verona steps in — wearing a vaguely hilarious silver pageboy wig — and yells at everyone. By the time Tybalt and Romeo get into their fatal duel, it appears like an argument over who can brood better. (Westwick can.)
Italian director Carlo Carlei has a background in TV movies, and this film, plodding and earnest, seems meant for the small screen, too. The melodramatic soundtrack, by Abel Korzeniowski, flares up every so often to demonstrate meaningful scenes, but often ends up overwhelming Steinfeld and Booth’s thin dialogue. On second thought — maybe that wasn’t accidental after all.