Rome & Juliet

Despite the title and a co-writing credit for William Shakespeare, Rome & Juliet has very little to do with the classic play. In fact, I and many other reviewers noted the similarities between the film and Imagine Me & You, which came out a year prior. I regret to inform you that Rome & Juliet isn’t exactly Shakespeare. It’s not even Imagine Me & You.

Religious, traditional Juliet is set to marry her boyfriend, who is running for local office. Immediately, we see that Juliet’s life involves a lot of focus on appearance, optics and tradition. Juliet initially seems to easily fit into the mould that her family and future in-laws want of her. Then, she meets Rome. Rome is supposed to be Juliet’s wedding planner. But this is WLW Film Reviews so guess what happens. Yeah, the two women fall for each other. But numerous social pressures that both women internalize jeopardize their potential happiness. And for a minute there, it seems impossible that Rome and Juliet can achieve their happy ending.

Rome & Juliet is a very low budget, independent movie. And at least initially, I was pretty on board with it. My general complaints about picture and sound quality still applied, but I was willing to give Rome & Juliet a chance. Sometimes indie movies are where someone can exercise the most freedom. And at least in subject matter, that’s likely the case here. There was never going to be a big budget pro-LGBTQ* film in the Phillipines in 2006. So, director Connie Macatuno did the damn thing herself. And I admire that. But the technical issues of Rome & Juliet do affect what is already a pretty weak script.

Editing is a huge problem for the movie. And really, if you notice the editing at all, that probably means it’s bad. Some of my general technical critiques don’t factor into the happier scenes. Many of Rome and Juliet’s romance scenes are carried by the fact that the filmmaking is passionate, the scenes are cute and the actors have good chemistry. But even here, so many stylistic choices bring down the natural quality of this story. Romantic scenes are too heavily scored with acoustic romantic music, flashbacks with soft focus and someone getting too excited on what their shiny new editing software can do with overlays. Especially because there is a low budget, leaning into the more naturalistic successes of the film would’ve helped. Rome and Juliet are cute together, they have good chemistry! Have faith in that instead of inauthentically over-selling these moments as romantic.

And in moments when the movie isn’t cute and light-hearted there’s basically nothing to recommend. The editing particularly tanks these scenes. Lots of the choices of camera angles, zooms and cuts are almost bizarre. Far from adding atmosphere or tension, they remove it. Juliet is fighting with her boyfriend and all I can wonder is who decided to film them at this slanted close-up angle. Unfortunately, Rome & Juliet’s runtime of 126 minutes is made up of more dramatic scenes that cute romantic scenes.

The pacing is overall pretty off here too. The movie feels at once an hour too long and like the last hour is too crammed with plot. Rome and Juliet get together around 80 minutes in. And then it’s just a non-stop barrage of reasons they shouldn’t be together. There’s such a small amount of time here where Rome and Juliet are together and even remotely happy. What this film shows of their relationship is a romance that brought far more sadness than happiness. This all culminates in an ending so rushed I actually missed it and thought the movie didn’t provide a happy ending. It did, it’s just so last minute it’s literally during the credits.

Rome & Juliet has its fans. And it’s certainly an important step in representation in that way that often only cheap indie movies can be. But I still can’t recommend it. The technical aspects of the film are too weak. And the story is likewise weak, poorly paced and perhaps too reminiscent of a different, better-paced and much higher budgeted WLW film, Imagine Me & You. I have space in my heart for multiple films with similar plot lines. But not for films that have such poorly quality audio and editing, sorry.

Overall rating: 3.6/10

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