Romeo & Juliet

What is Romeo and Juliet about?

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy about two doomed young lovers from feuding households. The tale is much older than William Shakespeare, going back to ancient history, the Bard himself heavily borrowing from earlier stories. Shakespeare's version, which expanded upon the plot and characters, became the definitive iteration of the story, forever cemented in Western literary canon and beyond. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular, and it has been interpreted, adapted, parodied, and reimagined countless times since its publishing in 1597. In our modern culture, it's referenced in movies and books and other stage plays and TV shows and mobile phone advertisements. It's taught in English classes around the world—and other languages as well. Romeo and Juliet's worldwide cultural significance is so great that if you are reading this text, it is inevitable that you have at least an inkling of what it is about.

What is Romeo and Juliet about?

We lay our scene in Verona, Italy, amidst the ancient feud between the House of Capulet and the House of Montague. Young Juliet, not even fourteen years old, daughter of Lord Capulet, is pursued by the older Count Paris, and her mother and nurse attempt to convince her to accept his love and hand in marriage. Young Romeo, son of Lord Montague, laments to his cousin Benvolio about his unrequited love for a girl named Rosaline, and he is persuaded by Benvolio and their friend Mercutio to attend the Capulets' masquerade ball. This is the very same ball where Juliet is intended to get to know Paris. At the ball, Romeo and Juliet meet, and fall in love.

Later in the evening on Juliet's balcony, having learned of each other's identities, the two profess their love for each other and plan to marry. The next day, the friar Laurence marries them in secret, as he hopes their union can end their families' feud. However, conflict immediately follows as Juliet's cousin Tybalt, who recognized Romeo at the ball and was enraged at his attendance, challenges Romeo to a duel. Romeo refuses to fight and Mercutio accepts instead. Tybalt kills him. Romeo then duels and slays Tybalt. The Prince of Verona banishes Romeo under punishment of death, and he, after spending the night with Juliet, is forced to flee to Mantua.

After having lost Tybalt, Lord Capulet agrees to allow Paris to marry Juliet, but Juliet refuses, and her father threatens to disown her. She begs Friar Laurence for help, and he devises a plan : Juliet shall drink a potion that will put her in a coma and make her appear to be dead for just under two days, Friar Laurence shall send a letter to Romeo, and when Juliet awakens in her family's tomb, she and Romeo can reunite and begin their lives anew together, somewhere far away. Juliet does just this, but the friar's message never reaches Romeo—instead, he receives news of Juliet's death. He purchases a deadly poison and sets off for Juliet's tomb. There, he meets a grieving Paris, whom he duels and kills.

At Juliet's side, still believing her to be dead, Romeo drinks his poison and dies. Juliet wakes up soon afterwards, and, facing isolation and seeing her lover dead beside her, she takes his dagger and stabs herself to join him. Their families find their bodies, learn of the truth, and decide to finally end their feud.

What is Romeo and Juliet about?

Love
Hatred
Fate
Death

What is Romeo and Juliet about?

There are so many exhausting misconceptions about Romeo and Juliet online you could make a bingo card out of it. Like, literally.

The above image was created by Tumblr user imyselfamstrange. I'm not an expert on Shakespeare or the historical context of the play or even literature in general. I'm not the type to go over all these statements and debunk them—that kind of information already exists elsewhere. I just want to exploer the bigger picture of what Romeo and Juliet means to people, and what it means to me. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond...

Romeo and Juliet are archetypal young lovers. In popular culture, their story is ubiquitously synonymous with great romance. The ultimate romance, even. A person's familarity with Romeo and Juliet can vary, but the one thing that cannot be forgotten about them is that they were in love. Because of Romeo and Juliet, a lot of people seem to not know that the term "star-crossed" means doomed by fate.

By contrast, there is another popular, cynical attitude towards Romeo and Juliet, one which seems to be perpetuated in response to the cultural emphasis on their great love. You've probably heard it before. I think I remember seeing it on Pinterest when I was eleven :

(TAYLOR SWIFT Should be informed made me laugh out loud when I saw this version) This commonly shared meme phrase from around the 2010s checks at least 7 of our bingo boxes. Again, I'm not the one to go to to debunk every detail, so instead let me point to this classic post from Tumblr user butchhamlet which knocks it outta the park and I quote to myself all the time.

The meme phrase despite its flawed premise does bring up one thing. If the one thing about Romeo and Juliet that cannot be forgotten is their love, then there is one thing that I believe is forgotten just a little too often, at least in their significance in popular culture : just how young they are. Juliet is thirteen, and Romeo is commonly agreed to be about fifteen. They were children. And this is a pertinent element of the play ! Lord Capulet is hesitant at first to marry off his daughter so young, to which Paris responds : "Younger than she are happy mothers made." (2.1.12) Lady Capulet, notably, was one such bride and mother. Romeo, and especially Juliet, being children subject to their parents' will, were powerless to save themselves amidst their families' feud. They as children suffered from their families' hatred.

There's an argument made by the more cynical crowd that our star-crossed lovers were just stupid and impulsive. Disregarding this bad faith take on the desperation exhibited by the lovers, I'd argue : even if they were just stupid kids, they didn't deserve to die for it. Teenagers should be allowed to explore their feeling and emotions, get into relationships, have conflict, and fuck up big time without the threat of death. The adults in a teen's life are the ones who are supposed to guide and protect them. But Romeo and Juliet were failed by the adults in their lives. They deserved a chance and never got it.

Imagine being fifteen years old and going through a depressive episode and finding joy and comfort in the company of a girl you meet, only to learn that this true connection you've made is forbidden because her family is in violent conflict with yours. Imagine being thirteen years old and having to tell the boy you love that if he is caught with you, your family could kill him. Imagine being fifteen and having your best friend die under your arm and then in grief and guilt you kill the one who killed him. Imagine being thirteen and hearing the news that your beloved—your HUSBAND—has killed your cousin, and then being forced to marry a man you do not love. Imagine being a teenager and believing that the future can hold nothing for you, ultimately decidng that you cannot continue living.

These themes of parents and their relationships with their children, generational prejudice and strife affecting the lives of the youth, and being young and finding companionship in a scary world resonate with me deeply.

What is Romeo and Juliet about?

Forbidden, young Love
The destructive nature of Hatred
Prejudice
Fate
Choices and agency
Children and their parents
Adolescence
Cyclical violence
Death

What is Romeo and Juliet about?

It's scary to be a trans kid in the world we live in.

You fear the violence speared on by prejudice. You fear dangerous law after dangerous law around the globe, written and passed by politicians who only know to maintain the status quo. You fear the lack of support from the people who love you. You fear growing up and nothing getting better.

You don't know who to trust. You feel powerless to change the circumstances of your own life, let alone the world at large. Everyone believes that you are too young to know what is good for you. You just want to be seen for who you are.

I'm lucky to live in trans-friendly place, to not fear for my own life. But the reality of the trans kid is that if not fearing for your own life, you fear for the lives of your friends. Your community.

In 2024, news broke of Nex Benedict, a non-binary American high school student who had taken their own life. Their state, Oklahoma, had recently passed several transgender policies, one specifically affecting trans youth. Nex had suffered bullying from classmates, and the day before their suicide, they had been involved in a physical altercation in a school washroom that resulted in their injury. They were my age at the time. Their first name is rather uncommon. It's the same as one of my close friends.

Nex lived over a thousand kilometres from me. I cried for them.

Life is not a Shakespeare play. In the world we live in, the death of a child is not enough to conquer generations of hatred. We can only choose to continue to have hope and love and live.

What is Romeo and Juliet about?

Leave it to the aro to find a way to make the world's most famous love story about something other than love.

What is Romeo and Juliet about?

A defining event for my character is that growing up, I was not allowed to make friends on the internet, but I did anyway.

Multiple times when I was a kid, my mom confiscated my devices because she caught me chatting online, even if it was something as innocuous as responding to my opponent making small talk on Pokémon Showdown. I was obsessed with kids’ virtual worlds like Animal Jam and Webkinz, but because of this ban, they were closer to solo player games to me. My parents didn’t even put chat restrictions on my accounts; I was just a goody-two-shoes who didn’t want to get in trouble. Sometimes I joke to myself about how this all protected me from getting bullied by paid members who picked on non-paying players, or scammed for my info when I was a naive kid who would constantly be downloading viruses onto my mom’s laptop.

I don’t blame my mom for being concerned about my safety online. Her generation grew up without the internet and she has no point of reference for what online friendships even look like. In my opinion, it’s a huge flaw in a lot of discussion surrounding internet safety for kids: there’s a big emphasis on protecting children from malicious actors, which is more than warranted, but there’s less acknowledgement of how impactful relationships made online can be. My mother reads news stories of worst case scenarios and I genuinely understand her fear and worry that these horrors might happen to me and my brother. She does what she believes is best for us. But that world where everyone behind the screen is out to get me is so much smaller than the one I live in.

I will be the first to admit that I was on Tumblr way too young, especially the first time my mom caught me on it at around ten years old. I wasn’t even using it to talk to people at the time since I was an awkward kid who didn’t follow many people at all, but she forbade me from using it all the same. And I listened to her for a good year or two. And then I got into a fandom that would lead me to making many of the closest friends I’ve ever had and still have to this day: Les Misérables. My friend got me into it in the sixth grade, and eventually it led me back to Tumblr, just in time for the seventh, which happened to be the 2019-2020 school year.

The COVID lockdowns meant that I needed the internet to do school or talk to anyone outside my family; I was on my laptop for essentially all my waking hours, giving me all the time in the world to sneakily engage with fandom on Tumblr. The full story's a long one and hardly coherent if you weren’t there, but I really started talking to people over Les Mis fanfiction, incorrect quotes, ships, song lyrics, obsession over the character Gavroche (who I was the same age as at the time) and most importantly, a roleplay "war" about an actor. We filled everyone’s dashboards with long ass roleplay threads and were ridiculously annoying to everyone else following us. It was absurd, and silly, and the first time I felt A Part of something online. The first time I could call someone online a friend.

Then it was taken away from me. My mom found out, of course, and made me delete the account for good, and I lost access to my laptop for the winter break of eighth grade. After all, there was no way these connections over the internet with people I hardly knew at all could have meant that much to me anyways.

In ninth grade, I had my first kiss. It was with the girl who had introduced me to half my fandoms. She had been my best friend since pre-school and our influence on each other’s interests was huge. She got me into Les Mis, Newsies, musicals in general, Murdoch Mysteries—my longest running fandom fixation to date—and more; I discovered musicals like Falsettos, Spring Awakening, and Alice By Heart, and shared them with her and the rest of our friend group, as well as new music like cheesy love songs and pop-punk. Ninth grade was the first year we were in different schools because I had moved but we stayed in touch through video calls and regular meet-ups. And I kissed this girl in her bedroom at a sleepover.

(She and I are no longer together, and we’re much less close these days, but she’s still my friend and it is undeniable that she is one of the most significant people of my childhood.)

My relationship with queerness before this point is probably a familiar tune to many kids who grew up in similar online spaces: the first time I learned about LGBTQ+ topics in depth was through fandom, through gay shipping and memes on Pinterest and Tumblr textposts and YouTube videos and interactions with people who had multiple names and pronoun sets. As a tween I was fascinated with these subjects, but did not believe myself to be queer. This was also the refrain I had to repeat to my parents whenever they caught me looking at anything related to queerness. My parents aren’t the extreme types, they’re not kicking anyone out of the house or hurling slurs or whatnot, but especially back then, it was a nightmare to even mention being gay to them for how much they insisted I stay away from it. They’re the type to talk about a future where I have a husband and children despite the fact I’ve told them I don’t want it. They’re the type to insist on learning a trans friend’s “real name” (deadname) and misgender them even if they never even knew them before they transitioned. They’re the type to be susceptible to propaganda telling parents that the internet is turning their children queer.

There's a problem balling up here. The internet is full of strangers, scary, unknown people who could influence me and harm me. The internet gave me the words and other tools to express my queerness. The internet is where my friends are, who are queer, and who get me on a level that I don't know if my parents could ever reach.

The third time I found myself back on Tumblr was the most significant. I had newly discovered my own queerness (notably, being gay and aromantic), and the reason for my return was that I had begun interacting with my old Tumblr friends again through anonymous asks on their blogs, and I missed them, and I learned that they missed me too. I existed! I existed!!! I made a new account and I found the Les Mis fandom again and joined some new ones and I felt so confident talking to my old friends and reaching out to make new ones. During my break, I’d joined a Murdoch Mysteries Discord server so a lot of that comfort came from interacting with this lovely little community. The thing about that Murdoch server, though, is that most members are older than me and though I appreciate everyone there, I don’t consider it the best place to share more personal things. But my new Les Mis pals would eventually invite me to join a musical theatre server of a bunch of queer nerds my age. And I don’t know how else to put it but the people from that server became my best friends.

I have a hard time making friends. In high school, sometimes, it felt pretty bad. My family had moved to a recently-built neighbourhood near the perimeter, which even today can often feel frustratingly far from everything and everyone, especially when I don’t have a driver’s license. I was the only one of my middle school friend group to not go to the same high school, so I often felt like I was missing out with them, and with my high school friend group, I didn’t live as close as most other people and to boot I hadn’t known everyone for as long since they had gone to elementary and middle school together. My parents pestered me to get off my computer and out of my bedroom but how was I supposed to get out when no one lived nearby and the only way to leave my neighbourhood on foot was along the highway? When I somehow felt like an outsider to all my friend groups? When it felt like I was just a dumb kid who had no control over my life?

On those days, I talked to my online friends more than anyone. About my life and their lives and our interests, so often shared. School, and musical theatre, and being queer, and à la the old roleplay wars from back in the day, random bullshit. It’s been years since I met them, and I actually left the old server in early 2026, but I still talk to them daily, and I’m so, so happy I found them.

An incident at the end of tenth grade had my mother threatening to go through my laptop, so under stress, I came out to her, and at the same time revealed that I’d been talking to all these “strangers”. Her reaction was less than ideal. I don’t even remember her saying that she accepted me until months later. But my life didn’t end. It took a long time to reach a point where I’m comfortable in my queerness in relation to my parents, and even longer for them to be comfortable with me talking to people online. I'm an adult now. 18 years old, going on 19, a student in university. I still live with my family. I'm at a much better place now than I ever was in middle and high school, both in my relationship with my parents and as a young adult (very slowly) gaining more independence.

Still, it feels so, so crazy, the way to this day my parents still don’t believe me when I call my online friends my friends. The way they deny the possibility that these people really mean something to me. They couldn’t understand how relieving it felt, at a time where my world felt suffocatingly small, finding people who got me, and all my dreams and fears.

I won't ever forget how it felt near the end of ninth grade, kissing a girl for the first time, realizing I was queer, secretly making my new Tumblr account, finding my space online again, and hiding everything. And how it felt in tenth grade, reading and feeling a lot of things about Romeo and Juliet, and feeling like I understood it in a way others did not.

What is Romeo and Juliet about?

Forbidden, young Love
The destructive nature of Hatred
Prejudice
Fate
Choices and agency
Children and their parents
Adolescence
Cyclical violence
Death
Me
What you need it to be

Tell me, what is Romeo and Juliet about?

Messages

Reviews

Having opinions about Romeo and Juliet (1968) back in tenth grade was a defining moment for me, because I believe that it was the first time I locked in on narrative analysis, which is a passion I have had ever since. Read some of my reviews on different takes on Romeo and Juliet!

Romeo & Juliet (2013)

Film adaptation directed by Carlo Carlei

August 11, 2026 - ⭐½

Check out this review on Letterboxd

what a terrible movie. i hate romeo. hailee steinfeld as juliet brings little joy but douglas booth's romeo gives me GRIEF. claire danes im so sorry for ever speaking ill of your acting, i hadn't known just how drab and uninspired an r&j performance could look until today. it's the first time ive been bored watching shakespeare.

there is no levity in this film. carlo carlei seems to have forgotten that humour is just as an essential element to shakespeare as drama. i think the only moments anyone laughs are maybe at queen mab and when mercutio teases the nurse ?? but even those bits feel like nothing compared to the overbearing severity with which every other scene is played. my god the swelling, dramatic music would NOT cease. this film constantly employs it to give its important moments gravitas and a cinematic feel and it's all so unearned. it was so OBNOXIOUS to watch these two lovers with such little chemistry kiss and hear this loud ass music building again and again, ultimately feeling nothing.

i realized at capulet planning juliet and paris's wedding that this movie, despite rewriting and modernizing a lot of the original verse and taking a few creative liberties with its additions, has kept every single scene from the play, ones often cut from productions and other film adaptations. i would appreciate this choice more if more scenes felt like they had something to say. instead everything feels like it was done for the sake of checking a box off a list, and so it drags. bad. and again everything is SO SERIOUS FOR NO REASON.

there are two scenes that i feel exemplify this the most, one being mercutio's death. mercutio in general has no charm or sauce ; he is honestly made forgettable and that is a grave crime. there's no humour or charisma in the way he speaks. and his death is so... quiet. « a scratch, a scratch » is cut, he neither makes effort to make light of the injury nor curse out the feud that killed him, he just... fizzles out. on another note : mercutio's a montague in this ?? like, maybe not related by blood but still he is one with the montagues as he is their champion in a joust at the beginning of the film so- « a plague on both your houses » doesn't even make sense. hello. his character is entirely lost here. he's boring.

the other scene that really irked me in this regard was the one in which the nurse gives juliet the news of romeo waiting to marry her. the entire point of juliet's nurse delaying to deliver this news is that she's being funny, toying with juliet a little. in a move that utterly perplexes me, the beats of this scene remain intact, but without any of the comedy ? why ????? there's no tension for the viewer, we know what romeo said, why delay if you're not going to have this fun little moment between juliet and her nurse ???????? at this point does anyone understand anything about the text they're adapting or are they just reading it out like in a bad school play ???????????

on the modernization of the dialogue itself : yeah, it does feel like the text has been dumbed down a little. we lose so much lyrical substance and in its place, we get modern speak that feels overly expository just for no reason. thank god they don't do it for everything.

i can't even say it looks nice. the costumes and sets are pretty at first but everything starts to blend together eventually.

but here are some things i liked, for a change of pace. benvolio being so young is an inspired choice. i can tell some genuine thought and care was put into his larger role as romeo's younger cousin who really, really cares and is concerned for him. he's just a boy who wants the best for everyone, caught in the middle of it all, who sees his friends and other older people die, and he couldn't stop it, because what could he do, he's just a boy... there is a double edged sword here, though. because when i'm watching baby-faced benvolio, thinking : « what the hell is bro doing here, he's so baby » it leads me to think... isn't romeo supposed to be baby ? sorry i'm complaining about romeo again. but he feels too old here especially with benvolio's youth in juxtaposition, but even in isolation, he's tall and he looks 20 (which was booth's age) and his general demeanour feels like more of a college student than a sentimental kid. though tbh as established booth's acting is giving nothing so more accurately his general demeanour is nothing at all, but it definitely does not feel right, and it feels like they could have honestly gotten something done if they had approached him in the way they did benvolio. whatever. the one and a half stars are all for benvolio, my boy.

agh. whatever. more of what i liked... i was excited to see that they made romeo a sculptor, what a cute detail, that's basically the only inspired part of his entire character in this movie. paul giamatti as the friar was alright. so is stellan skarsgård’s prince. there seems to be an inkling of a vision for the capulets' relationship and lord capulet's motivations. the end was good. mostly because romeo and juliet, the worst performances, are dead. the friar's reaction to juliet's death was the best acting in the entire thing, and benvolio making them hold hands was sweet.

i just saw a post on tumblr declaring that they hate romeo and juliet and that THIS was the adaptation they had tried to watch to see if they could understand it better. oh what a truly unfortunate journey that person has had with this play... this play, my favourite shakespeare play of all time, that has been so thoroughly squandered by this adaptation. what a truly unfortunate film.

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Film adaptation directed by Baz Luhrmann

August 10, 2026 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Check out this review on Letterboxd

i dont know how coherent this review is but i like this movie !! it is far from perfect and i could like it More and also i will almost always be comparing it less favourably to the 1968 film but it is a fun experience. regardless of if you think that this movie aligned with shakespeare’s vison, LUHRMANN had a Vision here. This film has a personal take and it commits to it 1000% and that alone is commendable. personally, i find that this hammy, over the top, extremely stylized reinterpretation is not only a fun and awesome time but also a faithful, decently effective take on romeo and juliet. Decently.

i’ll start by going through some character thoughts and go from there

MERCUTIO : i have no notes. harold perrineau is the blueprint, the people’s mercutio, and he will continue to be so for generations to come.

TYBALT : can’t take him seriously he’s so entertaining. Why is bro like that. By like that i mean angry and insanely aggressive and insatiably thirsty for blood. And while it’s hilarious at first then you start to take it seriously cause actually. WHY is bro like that. Something about learned prejudice, trauma from being raised in this volatile environment, and neglect. Tybalt existing at such an extreme represents the worst of what this situation can produce.

BENVOLIO : i don’t really like the real bro-y personality given to him here though that might just be a preference. Is it just me or is he really involved in the violence this time around ? my big tangible grief with him is how they give his lines after romeo’s killed tybalt to balthasar. Benvolio, the peacekeeper, failed in his mission. In the wake of two deaths he could not prevent, all he could do was urge his cousin to get out lest he suffers as well—and they gave his lines away !! what the hell !! i do appreciate his chemistry with romeo and mercutio though.

THE NURSE : unfortunately one of the instances where im constantly comparing this film to 1968’s, but miriam margoyles is still good and has great comedic moments.

FRIAR LAURENCE : i like how much of a chill dude he is. An underrated camp sequence is that of him explaining the plan to have juliet fake her death and it’s just visuals of the plan with his head taking up the other half of the screen.

ROMEO : i need to address a really pressing issue that is dicaprio’s delivery which feels REALLY awkward sometimes and it does take me out. I’m not sure what it is exactly. the Shakespearean language in the film overall doesn’t bother me, it is just him. Someone who knows more about this stuff feel free to jump in. anyways, aside from his occasional off delivery though, dicaprio does do a good job with him. i also like how he writes poetry hehehe.

my big issue with r+j is that it’s just too fast dawg, especially in the first half. this is luhrmann’s signature style, dizzying unconventional camera work, a distinct aesthetic, fast pace. and the greatest victim of this pace is my girl JULIET 😔 on my first watch back in 10th grade i had a huge issue with claire danes because of how little i was a fan of her juliet. This is largely because of the huge shoes to fill left by olivia hussey as juliet in the 1968 film, who is no doubt the highlight of her romeo and juliet film adaptation. 96!juliet does not hold a candle to 68!juliet. on this rewatch however i came to appreciate danes and her acting, particularly all the ways she acted around paris, really selling how she’s awkwardly going along with her parents’ wishes but is really not feeling the guy they’re pushing on her (SIDENOTE : why are there so many reviews talking about how hot paul rudd in this movie, paris is SO creepy in this 😭 the modern setting paints him in such a weird light, like why are you, verona beach’s most eligible bachelor, grown ass man in your 20s, pursuing this teenage girl. hello) and in the scene where she refuses to marry him. I’m sorry claire danes for slandering you in my 10th grade essay. You’re pretty cool.

so no, danes isn’t the one giving me nothing, it’s luhrmann’s direction. Why are so many of juliet’s scenes cut down so much ? her introduction is so short and so much attention in this scene is given oddly not to her but her mother’s costume ?? you hardly get to process anything about her. Her immediate reaction to tybalt’s death and conversation with her nurse is cut and we’re left with only her quiet talking to herself in her room, and we don’t even have time to sit with that because then romeo enters ?? juliet giving consent to marry paris before drinking her potion is cut entirely. For a movie with two names in the title romeo+juliet really suffers from neglecting one half of its main couple. They give romeo so much to do but hardly spare us anything to breathe more life into juliet. It really sucks because juliet is such a well written character in the original text with a lot of agency but we get so much less of it here.

this lack of focus on juliet is a contributing factor to how i just. Didn’t buy the romance as much. controversial opinion i guess but the fish tank doesn’t sell it for me 😔 don’t get me wrong, i think it’s cute and fun and sweet and i get their connection and interest but not exactly to the point of needing to kiss immediately. Also it feels weird right after romeo has just had his brief ecstasy trip. Why does romeo take ecstasy before the party. It represents his lost and tumultuous feelings before meeting coming down by meeting juliet, sure, but honestly for me, in execution, it’s kind of just jarring. The pool scene is good and romantic though yay 👍 other than that their chemistry feels standard, or idk, maybe i’m the weird aro who doesn’t get it (then again, i like a lot of other fictional screen romances so). i really think the emotional resonance of this film would be so much more effective if we had more time to breathe with its characters. that’s not to say that this movie isnt compelling. starting at 3.1, the film for the most part is VERY compelling, and the ingenuity of the style benefits the story rather than detract from it. romeo’s way from mantua to juliet’s tomb is a standout example. and 3.1 itself… ough… My favourite shot of the entire film has always been the still shot of mercutio’s body in the foreground, with romeo and benvolio running for romeo’s car, the fucking REAL STORM looming in the background. Now thats cinema baby. and the romeo and juliet’s deaths… fuck…

it aint hard to admit the setting and framing and overall visual and directorial style are just so fun and unique and really just awesome as fuck. if you have fun in your heart all of these choices will make you smile. the titles introducing the characters, the montagues’ aloha shirts (i watched this before going to the beach so i was wearing one such shirt and it felt so right), the names of blades on the guns, everything about the party scene, the MUSIC ! it’s so rich with personality and excitement and thematic substance to boot !!! i want to note that the amount of catholic imagery all over the goddamn place really adds to the culture of the world in a way that also lines up well with the importance of religion in the original text. juliet’s room is all decked out. both tybalt and mercutio are wearing crucifixes when they die. these implications are the easiest shit to point out in the world. something something hypocrisy, how these people are covered in symbols of a religion that preaches love and tolerance but. Well.

the last thing i’d like to note is the use of tvs. the film opens and closes on a television set, and throughout the film there are multiple sequences imitating media coverage of the events having just occurred. part of r+j’s vision, of course, was to portray and comment on specific parts of the culture of the modern time period. the tv motif highlights an element of spectacle, reflecting the sensationalization of horrible events by the media. i think it is a little ironic, given how the film itself’s focus on spectacle takes away from the heart of its story. 96 r+j has grand ideas for big sensational set pieces and it is awesome as fuck but some of the love and connection is lost in the process. oh well. still a fun time !

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

Film adaptation directed by Franco Zeffirelli

August 9, 2026 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Check out this review on Letterboxd

this is the movie that made romeo and juliet My shakespeare play. i’ve loved it since my 10th grade english class where it changed my brain a little and attached itself to me and we wrote an essay comparing 68 and 96 and i think that was the first time i really locked in on analysis because i had so much to say about it. i named myself after these two. i owe a lot to this movie i think. it’s beautiful.

there’s a fascinating thing this film does with romeo and the rest of the young men and it’s emphasizing a very strong culture of rowdiness and violence among them. these young men move in large, noisy crowds, egging one another on in their crudeness, arrogance, violence. you could read a lot from this choice : is this another symptom of the feud ? these young men encouraged to be vicious by the air of hatred established by the older generations ? or is it the other way around ? verona’s boys will be boys. the feud only serves to make the dangers in this culture even more potent.

what this choice does accomplish for certain is emphasizing just how different romeo is from the others. in the first half of the film he participates in this culture to an extent, but he never goes as far as the rest do. he makes fun of the nurse and her garments but doesn’t participate in harassing her. he does not partake in fighting. during the opening riot he is not present and when he does appear he’s holding his little flower 🥺🥺🥺. romeo is sensitive and sentimental and idealistic and naive. all romeo has on his mind is love, even if he has no real experience with it. romeo is the odd one out, just a child yearning for softness in a hateful world. it’s what makes him juliet’s match, because she is the same. it’s only after seeing mercutio slain that romeo gives into the violence, and this was his undoing.

he’s just so important to me. leonard whiting is a delight. he’s dreamy and passionate and extremely dramatic (my friend’s favourite scene is him sobbing about his banishment) and overall just wonderful. i love his joyful trot whenever he’s happy.

i’d be lying if i said the heart of the film is anything other than olivia hussey’s juliet. hussey IS juliet to me. r&j 68 is notable for casting its young lovers close to their canonical ages (iffy because of the nudity in that one scene, granted) and i just adore how juliet is so so believably a young teen girl. ohhh she is just a girl !!! imagine being 13 years old and having to tell the boy you love that if he’s caught your family could kill him. well you don’t have to imagine. hussey embodies it perfectly. she’s just a girl. ohhh

she’s rather shy at the party. i love the moment where it’s obvious she’s trying to lock in on her dance moves. i love it when she’s looking over people’s shoulders to look at romeo and the people she’s standing too close to turns to look at her. she’s the kid at the family gathering who is all composed but they’re too shy to actually talk to anyone and just goes around awkwardly trying to do their own thing. i’ve always been so enamoured with her mannerism of always touching her hair. juliet giggles a lot. she looks at her parents with wide eyes. she loves her nurse, she embraces her and laughs with her and is oh so physically close with her because she is her best friend ! the scene that always rips me apart the most is the one where juliet refuses to marry paris and is thus denied by her parents. she cries and shouts and begs and she hides behind her nurse’s skirts and oh the moment she hears her nurse, her best friend, regretfully suggest that juliet’d be better off if she accepted the marriage… it breaks my fucking heart.

hussey steals the show every time she is onscreen i am always thoroughly captivated by her. i can think of so many moments where juliet just feels so REAL. and that is SO important to her tragedy. she’s just a young girl, and she’s not allowed to be just a young girl. she needs to do right by her parents, she needs to fulfill her duty as the daughter of the lord of the house, she needs to respect her family’s feud with the family of the boy she loves, she needs to be romeo’s wife. she has no control over her circumstances. but nevertheless juliet has agency, given to her by shakespeare’s writing, and by the character and personality and emotion that hussey and zeffirelli create for her.

oh and romeo and juliet together ? a perfect pair. shy and hesitant and awkward at first, and then DESPERATE to cling on to each other and kiss. my god they are such perfect a teen romance. peak cinema is friar laurence having to physically block them from kissing too much during their wedding.

this film is long and it is long for a REASON. do i believe that it could be cut down ? sure, but the party scene REMAINS INTACT IN ITS ENTIRETY. it is essential how long we linger there, on how the couple are drawn to each other, fascinated by each other, trying to look without being obvious. it adds to the whole young love thing excellently. overall, across the whole film, i enjoy how much this movie takes the time to let us stay with these characters, let us live with them for a moment. that was my thesis in my 10th grade essay about this movie by the way. they stumble that run fast, and all that.

there is so much more about this movie. how multiple times our attention is drawn towards how young lady capulet is and how she evidently has complicated feelings about it. pat heywood’s incredibly loveable performance as the nurse. the tone shift of 3.1 hitting me unexpectedly hard ; i’d forgotten how light the first half of the film was. the dancing at the ball being SO fun. the costumes and sets. i could go on and on and on. this movie makes you give damn. i give a damn about this story !!!! about these characters !!! about romeo and juliet, and about being young and dreaming of something beautiful in a world that is ugly and cruel and does not, cannot understand, or care about you. about fighting hatred, to make way for love.

MY r&j adaptation. the best to ever do it. my shakespeare play.

List

To-watch(/read) list.

West Side Story (1961)
West Side Story (2021)
Gnomeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
China Girl
Private Romeo
Romeo and/or Juliet - note: I've read a bit of it before but I didn't get the time to finish reading it!
Bare: A Pop Opera
Romeo and Juliet (1954)
Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With a Kiss
Roméo et Juliette: de la Haine à l'Amour (2001) and Roméo & Juliette: Les Enfants de Vérone (2010) - note: I've literally watched one of these before and I cannot remember which so I'll eventually watch both haha