Movie review: Romeo and Juliet gets a new modern twist

BEEN a while since Shakespeare’s star-crossed smoochers got some big-screen love - and this version of Romeo and Juliet will divide fans.

BEEN a while since Shakespeare’s star-crossed smoochers got some big-screen love.

Going on the so-so outcome here, no one would have minded waiting a little longer.

Romeo (Douglas Booth) is a deadset medieval male model. Ladies just love how he opens and closes the curtains on those dreamy bedroom eyes.

Juliet (Hailee Steinfeld) is so breathlessly bedazzled by this hunky him-bo, she never looks entirely sure if she should be asking for his undying affection or an autograph.

Together, this pair radiate all the romantic heat of a boy-band singer and his fan-club president.

If you can look past the mismatched leads, the rest of the movie trundles along quite amicably.

Screenwriter Julian Fellowes (the brain behind the Downton Abbey phenomenon) has remixed some of the Bard’s dialogue to soup-up the appeal to modern audiences.

A modern twist ... Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas John Booth star in Romeo and Juliet.

Purists will undoubtedly be outraged, but newbies to the Shakespeare effect will find the knotted complications at the heart of the tale easier to untangle than is usually the case.

A polished production design is given further lustre by the knowledge this film was actually shot in the Verona so vividly imagined by the original playwright all those centuries ago.

An excellent support cast led by a brilliant Damian Lewis (as Juliet’s jumpy dad, Lord Capulet) and a scene-stealing Paul Giamatti (as the meddling Friar Laurence) pick up a lot of the slack generated by their younger fellow cast members.

Romeo & Juliet (M)

Director: Carlo Carlei (The Flight of the Innocent)

Starring: Douglas Booth, Hailee Steinfeld, Damian Lewis, Paul Giamatti, Kodi Smit-McPhee.

Rating: **1/2

Panting is such sweet sorrow