My oldest daughter (15) and I have been delving into a little bit of Shakespeare (dragging my 13 year old daughter along for the ride – quite possibly against her will). It started out on her part as a desire to familiarize herself with some of the plays, know just a bit more about them…primarily so she could mock the new Romeo and Juliet movie that was coming out. Really, could there be a more noble reason to study Shakespeare? So with familiarization for the end goal of mockery and sarcasm, we began… We started with Romeo and Juliet from Edith Nesbit’s Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare and then moved on to Baz Lurhmann’s quirky interpretation of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Daines. This particular version of Romeo and Juliet takes place in a modern day setting but with all of the original dialogue in place. It’s Baz Luhrmann. It’s really weird. We didn’t get very far into the movie and already my sarcastic and snarky, totally non-romantic, basketball obsessed, *what you see is what you get*, 15 1/2 year old daughter was covering her eyes and groaning in emotional agony at all the “I love you more than life itself and shall die if I can’t be with you forever and ever and ever and ever” dialogue and swooning. “THEY JUST MET EACH OTHER!” and “WHO TALKS THAT WAY??” And here, to ease her frustration and reassure her that all is right in the world, I clued her in on a little something I was sure would make her feel better. It’s Shakespeare. In the end…everybody dies. This did please her. Immensely. Perhaps a little too much. But with the abundance of fighting and death scenes we made it through to the end of the movie. And as promised, Romeo and Juliet met their untimely death. Together. Forever. And ever. And ever. My daughter’s under the breath mutterings were something along the lines of how they deserved it for being so stupid. Agreed.
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