-By David Noh
For movie details, please click here.
It’s pretty common knowledge by now that, in Shakespeare’s day, men
played all the roles, including the female ones. Director/adaptor
Alan Brown revives this gambit in his retelling of
Romeo and
Juliet with a specific gay spin, setting it in a modern-day
military academy. Unfortunately, what might have been a potently
suggestive idea—although undeniably done and done before
this—devolves into an exercise that feels alternately puzzling and
merely aimless.
The essential, very shakily executed premise has a bunch of army
trainees learning Shakespeare in class, which somehow spills over
into their real lives. What’s sorely needed is a lot more
non-Shakespearean text to reinforce the basic “modernizing”
conception, but Brown’s approach and use of it is so haphazard and
minimal that it all ends up feeling largely superfluous. Another
major flaw is Brown’s lack of differentiation between rival groups
in the school to parallel the essential Capulet-Montague conflict
of the original. These boys just seem basically hostile to
everybody in a menacing, homoerotic manner that I suppose is a
turn-on to certain types. No one dies here, either; they just get
beat up real bad—leaving them with comely bruises—which is maybe a
shame, but surely not a tragedy. It’s as if Brown thought that if
he cast enough comely young studs, clad them in uniforms and turned
them loose on the Bard, with trendy additions of YouTube and
indie-rock, that would be enough. And for all the sexual piquancy,
the film isn’t very sexy at all, with Brown going very demure in
the intimate moments. The 1968 Zeffirelli
Romeo had it all
over this one for hotness. Hell,
Top Gun—which also featured
locker-room grunts precariously draped in towels—was even
hotter!
To their credit, the young actors, Seth Numrich as “Romeo,” Matt
Doyle as “Juliet,” et al., speak the verse handily, like
particularly well-trained American Juilliard students, but surely
this must be the only
Romeo and Juliet in recollection in
which the Nurse (puckish, ultra-blond Chris Bresky) is the cast
standout. Doyle ends the film somewhat absurdly by suddenly
breaking into song with “You Made Me Love You,” a creative decision
that makes you wonder if Brown, in his quest to conquer gay
audiences, wanted to be sure to appeal to all the Judy Garland fans
out there as well.
Film Review: Private Romeo
Get a bunch of male hotties reciting Shakespeare’s most immortal love poetry to one another and you have a hot movie, right? Wrong!
Feb 9, 2012
-By David Noh
For movie details, please click here.
It’s pretty common knowledge by now that, in Shakespeare’s day, men played all the roles, including the female ones. Director/adaptor Alan Brown revives this gambit in his retelling of
Romeo and Juliet with a specific gay spin, setting it in a modern-day military academy. Unfortunately, what might have been a potently suggestive idea—although undeniably done and done before this—devolves into an exercise that feels alternately puzzling and merely aimless.
The essential, very shakily executed premise has a bunch of army trainees learning Shakespeare in class, which somehow spills over into their real lives. What’s sorely needed is a lot more non-Shakespearean text to reinforce the basic “modernizing” conception, but Brown’s approach and use of it is so haphazard and minimal that it all ends up feeling largely superfluous. Another major flaw is Brown’s lack of differentiation between rival groups in the school to parallel the essential Capulet-Montague conflict of the original. These boys just seem basically hostile to everybody in a menacing, homoerotic manner that I suppose is a turn-on to certain types. No one dies here, either; they just get beat up real bad—leaving them with comely bruises—which is maybe a shame, but surely not a tragedy. It’s as if Brown thought that if he cast enough comely young studs, clad them in uniforms and turned them loose on the Bard, with trendy additions of YouTube and indie-rock, that would be enough. And for all the sexual piquancy, the film isn’t very sexy at all, with Brown going very demure in the intimate moments. The 1968 Zeffirelli
Romeo had it all over this one for hotness. Hell,
Top Gun—which also featured locker-room grunts precariously draped in towels—was even hotter!
To their credit, the young actors, Seth Numrich as “Romeo,” Matt Doyle as “Juliet,” et al., speak the verse handily, like particularly well-trained American Juilliard students, but surely this must be the only
Romeo and Juliet in recollection in which the Nurse (puckish, ultra-blond Chris Bresky) is the cast standout. Doyle ends the film somewhat absurdly by suddenly breaking into song with “You Made Me Love You,” a creative decision that makes you wonder if Brown, in his quest to conquer gay audiences, wanted to be sure to appeal to all the Judy Garland fans out there as well.
