Romeo & Juliet

Director: Carlo Carlei Carlo Carlei

Overview

William Shakespeare's timeless tale of love and tragedy gets a 21st century makeover in this update starring Douglas Booth as Romeo, and Hailee Steinfeld as Juliet. Directed by Carlo Carlei (The Flight of the Innocent) and adapted by Julian Fellowes, Romeo & Juliet finds the innocent young lovers caught up in a bitter feud between their warring families, the Montagues and Capulets. Determined not to let the sins of their families' turbulent pasts stand in the path of true love, Romeo and Juliet run away to wed in secrecy. Alas, happiness was not to come, for in time the flames of their youthful passion will consume them both. Paul Giamatti, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Stellan Skarsgard co-star.

Product Details

Release Date:	02/04/2014
UPC:	0024543893899
Original Release:	2013
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	20Th Century Fox
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:58:00
Sales rank:	65,562

Special Features

Closed Caption; Romeo & Juliet featurettes; Cast and crew; The filmmaker's vision; Creating the look; Hair and makeup

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Hailee Steinfeld	Juliet Capulet
Douglas Booth	Romeo Montague
Ed Westwick	Tybalt
Kodi Smit-McPhee	Benvolio
Paul Giamatti	Friar Laurence
Christian Cooke	Mercutio
Damian Lewis	Lord Capulet
Tomas Arana	Lord Montague
Natascha McElhone	Lady Capulet
Lesley Manville	Nurse
Tom Wisdom	Count Paris
Laura Morante	Lady Montague
Leon Vitali	Apothecary
Nathalie Rapti Gomez	Rosaline
Anton Alexander	Abraham
Marcus J. Cotterell	Actor
Stellan Skarsgård	Prince Escalus of Verona
Clive Riche	Peter
Stefano Patti	Jack
Fabrice Scott	Watchman
Valentina Corti	Young Female Servant
Abel Korzeniowski	Composer

Technical Credits

Julian Fellowes

Carlo Carlei	Director
Julian Fellowes	Screenwriter,Producer
Dimitra Tsingou	Producer
Alexander Koll	Producer
Simon Bosanquet	Producer
Nadja Swarovski	Producer
Ileen Maisel	Producer
Lawrence Elman	Producer
Andrew Spaulding	Producer
Doug Mankoff	Producer
Marco Cohen	Executive Producer
Neil Tabatznik	Executive Producer
Markus Langes-Swarovski	Executive Producer
Phil Alberstat	Executive Producer
Beneditto Habib	Executive Producer,Executive Producer
William Shakespeare	Playwright
John Hubbard	Casting,Casting
Angelo Bonanni	Sound Effects
Andrew Caller	Sound Effects
Federico Costantini	Sound Effects
Fabrizio Donvito	Executive Producer
Steven Silver	Executive Producer

Editorial Reviews

While it's common for theater directors to stage both radically reworked and traditional productions of classic plays, movies are a different beast. Although Hollywood loves remakes, those happen primarily because the studios can sell them on name recognition, not because an artist has an idea about how to present familiar material in a new and enlightening way. Carlo Carlei's adaptation of Romeo & Juliet is much closer to being a traditionalist exercise than a bold reimagining, but the sharp script by Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes goes a long way toward making it a version of the story that can be easily embraced by a new generation. The story should be quite familiar to most. The Montagues and the Capulets are two feuding families in the Italian city of Verona. When teenagers Juliet Capulet (Hailee Steinfeld) and Romeo Montague (Douglas Booth) see each other at a masquerade ball, they instantly fall madly in love -- even though the purpose of the festivities was to introduce Juliet to Paris (Tom Wisdom), the nobleman her parents want her to marry. When a duel breaks out between Romeo's best friend Mercutio (Christian Cooke) and the Montague-hating Tybalt (Ed Westwick), Romeo is compelled to avenge his friend and slay Tybalt. Having already warned the two clans to live peacefully, the prince of Verona (Stellan Skarsgård) orders Romeo banished from the land. This, added to the fact that the two families despise each other, seems to squelch any hope that the two young lovers will end up together. However, with the help of Friar Laurence (Paul Giamatti) and Juliet's loyal nurse (Lesley Manville), a plot unfolds for the pair to be reunited. What sets this particular version of Romeo & Juliet apart from the others is the script by Fellowes, which not only effectively streamlines the plot, but fuses chunks of the original text with dialogue created by the screenwriter. That might seem sacrilegious to purists, but it helps shape the film into a manageable story without sacrificing the poetic dialogue. Thankfully, the cast are more than able to deliver that dialogue, and two performers in particular stand out above the rest. Hailee Steinfeld, not quite 17 at the time of this movie's release, impresses with her poise and her ability to project maturity. She proved three years earlier in True Grit, her remarkable film debut, that she could easily navigate the verbose and precise dialogue of novelist Charles Portis (as reworked by the Coen brothers). She confirms here that her previous work was no fluke, making her Juliet tragic and real without missing the nuance and beauty of the script. It seems plausible that she learned a great deal from watching Paul Giamatti, who shines here precisely because he's the only one who doesn't seem weighed down by the history of the text -- he makes this dialogue sound utterly natural and commonplace. There are no real surprises in the movie: Carlei's direction is solid and unflashy. The entire production has been designed to appeal to teens skeptical that they can understand Shakespeare, but at the same time, it's been given enough tradition so it won't alienate those who love the source material. Franco Zeffirelli had a huge hit 45 years ago with an adaptation of Romeo & Juliet that took much the same approach to this material, and while it seems unlikely that this new version will become a similar phenomenon, it might just make a few brave young souls feel like exploring the work of history's greatest playwright.