This film has to be seen for what it does well. Zeffirelli puts his young actors (Hussey and Whiting) against an opulent renaissance background. And that treatment -- along with Michael York's sneering Tybalt -- is why one would watch that film. Castellani dwarfs his actors (Harvey and Shentall) with the architecture of Verona, but Shentall refuses to be crushed and delivers an endearing performance. Luhrmann places his actors (de Caprio and Danes) in the vivid swirl of Mexico City, a place of fabulous wealth and deepest poverty. The lovers race to their doom in a film that captures the rhythms of the script, for all of the ineptitude of the actors. Cukor's black-and-white photography is superb. Look, for example, at Romeo's approach past a reflecting pool to Juliet's balcony. It is wonderfully realized. So what if Juliet's balcony looks like a crow's nest on a battleship? This is a film to be enjoyed for the wordless sequences that the camera creates for us.
Review of Romeo and Juliet
