Private Romeo (2011)

As with each time I see Shakespeare, it took a few minutes to get used to the Elizabethan English, but after a while, I got the rhythm of the language and enjoyed this movie more and more as it went on. The acting by every single actor is simply wonderful. I really felt for the characters. And though the American military academy setting seems odd for Romeo and Juliet, it worked given the prohibition on being out in the US military at the time the movie was made.And - spoiler coming - I was brought to tears when Romeo woke up at the end. Gay or straight, young love deserves to survive. And in this case, young gay love surviving in the military sends a strong, positive message. I doubt Shakespeare would have minded.

"Private Romeo" is supposed to be an updated version of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet,' but the only resemblance seems to be that the characters all speak mostly from the original text. What would be lost if these two were not allowed to be in love? What would be gained?Scenes in a literature class wherein the cadets are reading the text are juxtaposed with a bare-bones version of the story where they, for whatever reason, also speak lines practically verbatim with the original text. The new setting and the forbidden love being shifted to gay love is not a bad idea. But it didn't matter to any of the cadets that two of them were gay. They aren't from rival academies. They don't appear to be different in any way. So the love wasn't forbidden. Around the time Tybalt comes into the gym, demanding justice, I started thinking that these guys were taking their Shakespeare class too far. Referring online, I learn that the characters should be related. Tybalt is Juliet's cousin, so why is he so angry that he would want to hurt anyone? Here, it's because it happened in the original text at a major point in the story. Many scenes are confusing. The actor playing Mercutio is also supposed to be Juliet's father, so who he is playing when isn't always clear. During a scene wherein he sells Juliet for marriage, I kept wondering when Mercutio became Juliet's father and how soldiers of the same rank can sell another to marriage. A character has a cell phone, so it could be safe to assume that others do as well. When Juliet drinks her poison, I wondered why she didn't just text Romeo with something like "omg faking own death lol if u c me im not dead #RnJ4eva". Here's something that REALLY bothered me. The male and female characters are all still divided, with Juliet and Nurse being referred to as women although obviously played by men. When Romeo is spooning Juliet, she is Little Spoon. The movie didn't even attempt to do anything to further gender roles. At some point, it must have crossed Brown's mind that at least minor changes in the text would be necessary. In one scene, Mercutio and another character are in a hallway trying to find Romeo. Mercutio offers, "He's hiding in the trees here." I'm thinking, "You're in a hallway. There are no trees!" Such things make me have to use a word I despise using when describing movies; 'pretentious.' It's often referenced in this movie's message board that at the time of Shakespeare, only men were allowed to act. That's well and good (and I saw "Shakespeare in Love," too), but the story takes place in the modern day where women are allowed to act. So why did all the actors have to be male? Because Alan Brown wanted to make a gay version of Romeo and Juliet. I am a gay man, and if you hate this movie, it does not mean that you hate gays. The acting was good. Perhaps that's a fault for me because if the acting had been bad, the movie would have been funny. Instead, I found it boring and annoying. Why should we care about these characters if the writer/director doesn't care enough to give us a reason? It seemed lazy the way only a handful of lines were in modern speak and the rest were Shakespeare's text. It seems as though Brown thought that if he changed the absolute minimum that it would all fall into place. It doesn't. Yes, I'm being harsh on an independent film with practically no budget. Still, that's not enough to excuse bad storytelling. I have watched low budget movies with brilliant scripts, high budget movies with terrible scripts (who hasn't hated at least one summer blockbuster?), and this is a low budget movie with a horrible script. If I had a copy of it, I would almost feel inclined to write notes in it with red ink and send it back. It really is a miracle that movies without big names attached get made in the first place, but "Private Romeo" does not help. By refusing to actually update the material, we're left wondering why we are watching this in the first place. That's the worst question that can appear in a viewer's mind.In the original text, Romeo's and Juliet's deaths helped end the feuding between the families. Here, they both survive. What good does that do? I'm not saying the characters have to die but am saying that their fates are directly tied to the story. If it doesn't matter one way or another, then it doesn't matter. If you want a good, witty update of Romeo and Juliet, watch "Warm Bodies." Actually, throughout "Private Romeo" I kept wishing I was watching "Warm Bodies." The story was updated with genuine wit, turning the feuding families into zombies and zombie killers. There is even a brilliant parody of the famous balcony sequence as well as perhaps a better reason for their forbidden love to exist in the first place. Skip "Private Romeo" and watch "Warm Bodies" instead. If the latter disappoints you, then the former could be like torture. It certainly was for me.

Any gay person will tell you that one of their main problems (granted that they survived adolescence unscarred and are reasonably well-adjusted--that's a big "granted") is that there is no real "language" for romance between two men, or two women. Gay people generally hide their sexuality during the period when others are learning how to express it, and once a gay person has determined to strike out on his or her own, there isn't much in the culture to let them know how to approach another person of the same sex--what the rules are, what to say, what signals to send and how to read the other person. And most "gay movies" that try to fulfill this function are gimmicky and/or maudlin--people in them don't talk like human beings."Private Romeo" solves the problem by using the play still regarded as the last word on young romance--William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"--and putting the words of Shakespeare's young lovers in the mouths of two men--cadets at a military training academy. In a sort of limbo while they await orders for transfer, the cadets are (for some reason) studying "Romeo and Juliet" in their classes, and they begin to lapse in and out of the play in their daily lives, as Sam (Seth Numrich) and Glenn (Matt Doyle) meet, fall in love, and play out their destiny in a way that parallels Shakespeare in some ways and departs from it in others. Their classmates follow suit, echoing Shakespeare's world in another way--all of the roles are played by men, and several of them switch from one role to another without any fuss or directorial signaling (after Mercutio's death scene, he simply becomes Capulet).All of this is accomplished without a trace of self-consciousness. The actors behave in a way I don't believe I've ever seen in a modern Shakespeare adaptation--their movements and inflections are completely contemporary, yet the language comes out of them easily--it never seems jarring or archaic. The actors are trained (Numrich and Doyle appeared in "War Horse") so that they do the play honor yet still make it work as a modern movie. Numrich is a convincingly ardent Romeo--when he meets his Juliet at a late-night beer-and-cards bash (substituting for the Capulet ball), he circles him warily, making tentative gestures at his hand and (eventually) his lips ("give me my sin again"). Doyle's Juliet, the center of the movie, registers the moment of Glenn's surrender wonderfully, and from then on he lives only for his love. His face becomes so eager at the thought of Romeo that we long to see it stay that way--the moments when it collapses and shatters with pain become almost unbearable. None of the other students react in conventionally "homophobic" ways--Tybalt (Bobby Moreno) is just another young men left in charge who has gotten full of himself, and who thinks that Sam and Glenn's liaison will disrupt order at the academy. And Hale Appleman's Mercutio is the most ambiguous reading of that role in quite a while--during the Queen Mab speech, we can't tell whether he is cautioning Romeo against the "dream" of gay love, or whether he has a thing for him himself.Sorry to have gone on for so long, but this movie affected me in a very personal way, especially during the balcony scene--or, for that matter, any scene in which Romeo and Juliet are together. The movie does what flashier, "concept"-riddled Shakespeare films don't--it makes what now seems quaint and abstract in the play (the feud, the duels) seem electric. There is genuine tension and peril in the air, plus a tenderness that seems earned. Lines take on new meaning ("I do love--a woman", "Is love a tender thing?", and, especially, "Thy beauty hath made me effeminate"). Spoiler--no one dies here, not even the two title lovers, and yet the stakes are as high as ever. And not even the sternest Shakespeare purist could disavow this ending--especially not one who has seen too many screen homosexuals end in suicide (or too many real-life gay teens doing the same.)

I am but 5 minutes Private Romeo watching and find myself wholly enthralled! There is true inspiration and crafty artists at work here... I feel I have hit upon a Jewel of the Bard. I will, a full review, compose later Anon! Alas, IMDb does not permit my premature prose of this work of fantastic marriage. I must twice five lines of words write before the auditor will allow a go. A promise I leave here to fill these blank boxes with words of wonder. To honor the integrity of this site, I will complete the rest of the review in quick verse, only to be revisited shortly with well paced praise. Why you ask I praise so highly a piece I have hardly held? When what you seek is true beauty in the art form, you need be but blind to not see the essence of that beauty which flares from this film, even if shadows on the wall is all you are treated to. This is Romeo and Juliet told in verse, in towels, in locker rooms and English classrooms, at a military academy for a few fair lass' in love. The script is superb and the words are Shakespeare - I don't want it to end