A wood-paneled television’s staticky screen floats in a sea of deep, impenetrable black, coming closer and closer to us, until a news broadcast switches on.

The tale of Romeo and Juliet-feuding families, star-crossed lovers, the whole thing-is ubiquitous, and from its very first frame, Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” works to undermine what viewers might already associate with it. I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart “You want me? F-ing come and find me,” Thom Yorke sneers in “Talk Show Host,” and how convincingly Perrineau and Leguizamo made real the antipathy between the Montagues and Capulets helped immortalize “Romeo + Juliet” into a film that has since proved impossible to replicate or replace. Although “Romeo + Juliet” wasn’t singular in this casting approach ( Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 version of “Much Ado About Nothing,” for example, included a very good Denzel Washington and a trying-his-best Keanu Reeves in its ensemble), it remains iconic for how intentionally it subverted our expectations of Shakespeare’s world and the characters who could live within it. Frankly, they’re phenomenal, their highly tuned performances giving “Romeo + Juliet” the thrill and danger needed to make its calamities even more impactful. As the conversation about diversity, inclusion, and representation in film has taken on a more impassioned tone in recent years, Perrineau and Leguizamo demonstrate the value added of such equity.

As Black and Latin American men, the actors bring complexity and depth to Luhrmann’s depiction of Verona Beach, and their presence complicates our traditional ideas of tribalism. But DiCaprio at the peak of his blonde-banged allure isn’t the only draw here: costars Harold Perrineau and John Leguizamo are forces of nature whose performances add much-needed diversity to a story that too often-like so many Shakespeare adaptations-is imagined as a monotony of whiteness.Īs Mercutio, Romeo’s hotheaded best friend, and Tybalt, Juliet’s ( Claire Danes) volatile cousin, Perrineau and Leguizamo, respectively, are hurricanes of charisma every time they appear onscreen. For millennials of a certain age, the smoldering glare of his introduction, set to Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host,” remains a formative spark of sexual discovery. Leonardo DiCaprio’s face helped, of course. A modern spin on the romantic tragedy defined by Luhrmann’s affective style, Jill Bilcock’s frenetic editing, and that banger of a contemporary soundtrack, “Romeo + Juliet” was a runaway success that made the romantic tragedy an obsession for a new generation of viewers. theaters provides us with an opportunity: to revisit Baz Luhrmann’s “ Romeo + Juliet,” released 24 years ago this month. The lack of new Shakespeare adaptations hitting U.S. 2020 has been a strange year for cinema, but its unpredictability has made room for reassessment.

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