Six rea­sons Why Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juli­et still rocks

To cel­e­brate the 20^th anniver­sary of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juli­et, we decid­ed to revis­it the film that estab­lished Leonar­do DiCaprio as a roman­tic lead to check whether the pass­ing of time had poi­soned its charms or giv­en it wings.

“Did my heart love till now?” mur­murs Romeo Mon­tague, fix­ing his baby blues on the daugh­ter of his family’s mor­tal ene­my, Juli­et Capulet. It’s a ques­tion that those of us watch­ing him (watch­ing her) have had cause to ask our­selves over the years. At 22 Leo is the clas­si­cal image of love’s young dream. His hair is flop­py; his body gold­en. His face is del­i­cate; his eyes smoul­der­ing. He deliv­ers Shakespeare’s lines by turns in earnest whis­pers and pas­sion­ate erup­tions. He emotes gen­tly and then at 10 on the melo­dra­ma scale.

Match­ing Juli­et to her Romeo is essen­tial work for any direc­tor hop­ing to mount a mem­o­rable pro­duc­tion. For an accel­er­at­ed love-at-first-sight-then-mar­riage-with­in-24-hours romance to work, the chem­istry must be pal­pa­ble from the begin­ning. The lovers must suit each oth­er, emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly, while con­trast­ing in a com­ple­men­tary way. Danes is a pres­ence that the cam­era can’t pin down – some­times plain, some­times breath­tak­ing. She is pale, shel­tered and inno­cent but her capac­i­ty for love is immense and total­ly charming.

You want the chill-out melan­cho­lia of Radiohead’s ​‘Talk Show Host’ as Romeo is intro­duced while writ­ing a poem in twi­light? You want the pure-grade schmaltz of Des’ree’s ​‘Kiss­ing You’ as Romeo and Juli­et first clap eyes on each oth­er through a trop­i­cal fish tank? You want the row­dy gui­tars of Everclear’s ​‘Local God’ as the Mon­tague blokes speed along the free­way? You want Mer­cu­tio in spark­ly drag lead­ing a drugged up par­ty in a ren­di­tion of Kym Mazelle’s ​‘Young Hearts Run Free’? The range of music on this sound­track – which also includes Garbage, The Cardi­gans and The Wan­nadies – is bril­liant, with each song per­fect­ly matched to moments that bring out their pulse.

Baz Luhrmann is not a sub­tle film­mak­er and his flair for rich set­tings found its match in arguably the most endur­ing trag­ic love sto­ry of all time. His enjoy­ably gaudy update on Shakespeare’s 16^th cen­tu­ry set­ting include: Hawai­ian shirts all round; a mas­quer­ade ball pow­ered by fire­works and ecsta­sy; turn­ing swords into guns and wry­ly labelling them ​‘long sword’; Romeo and Juli­et kiss­ing while plung­ing to the bot­tom of her per­son­al swim­ming pool; Romeo in armour and Juli­et in angel wings kiss­ing in a lift as the gold doors clothes on them; fram­ing the sto­ry with media announce­ments in which a dead TV set crack­les to life and a news­read­er som­bre­ly begins, ​“Two house­holds, both alike in dig­ni­ty in fair Verona where we lay our scene…”

Look, it’s everyone’s favourite, Paul Rudd, as sil­ly dope, Paris! There’s Pete Posleth­waite as priest, potion-mas­ter and gen­er­al good guy, Father Lawrence! Here comes The Nurse, Miri­am Mar­goyles, deliv­er­ing mes­sages between the lovers with a po face before wig­gling her behind and toy­ing with Juli­et. Harold Perin­neau leaks fun and then blood as poor, doomed good-time guy, Mer­cu­tio. Vondie Cur­tis-Hall is full of impe­ri­ous fire as dis­mayed bystander and law enforcer, Cap­tain Prince. Paul Sorvi­no and Diane Veno­ra exude arro­gance as Juliet’s oppres­sive par­ents. John Leguizamo as Tybalt gives the pic­ture its snarling, badass vil­lain – full of pride and vengeance and hell­fire that trag­i­cal­ly over­pow­ers the del­i­cate flower of love.

One of the most stress­ful aspects of watch­ing Romeo + Juli­et is that you real­ly want it to end well. It says some­thing about the irra­tional­i­ty of hope that as the film hits opti­mistic nar­ra­tive touch­points, you think, ​‘Well, it has end­ed in tragedy for the last 400 years but maybe this time is the charm!’ The point at which Romeo could have made a bet­ter life deci­sion and trans­formed his sto­ry from a world-famous tragedy into a mum­blecore-style hap­py end­ing is when he is liv­ing in a car­a­van in exile in Mantua.

A very impor­tant mes­sage is deliv­ered on a slip of paper. It flies out of his let­ter­box and comes to rest in the desert sand but it’s still right there. Then his bud­dy Balt­haz­ar arrives with seem­ing­ly ter­ri­ble news and Romeo starts scream­ing at the heav­ens, when he should be comb­ing the desert floor for cor­re­spon­dence. Then, as Romeo tears off in a car, a sec­ond deliv­ery boy pulls up bear­ing a mes­sage that would have saved key lives but our hero is blind­ly encased in his feel­ings and doesn’t notice. There mes­sage is clear: check – real­ly check – your mail before you zoom off to meet your trag­ic fate.