Review by
Musanna Ahmed
Directed by: Carey Williams
Starring: Camaron Engels, Francesca Noel, David Zayas, María Gabriela de Faría, Diego Tinoco, RJ Cyler
There’s something perversely funny about this audacious Digital Age
rendition of Shakespeare. R#J is not really a comedy – it’s
plainly a contemporary adaptation of 'Romeo and Juliet', retold via
‘screenlife’, the form of storytelling in which everything is driven via
the use of computer screens (think
Unfriended,
Searching, etc). But seeing the meme language of Gen Z applied to Britain’s
favourite “high culture” staple can be quite rib-tickling.
Everyone and their dog knows the tragedy of the star-crossed lovers and
their warring families, the Montagues and Capulets, and
Carey Williams’s take doesn’t mess with the fundamentals. Instead,
it refreshes the perspective with a similar approach to Baz Luhrmann. The
Australian auteur brought the play to the modern day (well, the '90s) by
repurposing swords and noblemen with guns and gangsters in a facsimile of
Miami. Williams, on the other hand, centres his story on a hip, diverse
group of college kids who spend a lot of time on Instagram. While most of
the action takes place in the DMs, we are Facetime’d into a Capulet-hosted
costume party that serves as the masked ball, wherein we spend time with a
hilarious, coke-sniffing Mercutio (Siddiq Saunderson).
Sometimes, R#J can be genuinely endearing, its spirit
energised by two likeable youngsters in the titular roles,
Camaron Engels and Francesca Noel, respectively. And it’s
also well observed with cool pop culture references (the Junji Ito mobile
wallpaper!) and accurate social media usage, including precise text
message exchanges that don’t evidence a “fellow kids” understanding of Gen
Z language. But it also really needs to be serious and seeing iconic
moments and characters manifest as hashtags like #riptybalt provide
unintentional laughs.
The comment sections are interesting because there are small, cutting
moments of social commentary around police brutality and economic
privilege as we watch the Montagues and Capulets throw hands and trade
barbs. They also highlight the insouciance instilled in people on the
Internet who don't have to worry about consequences behind the keyboard.
Randomers casually call for the death of Capulets and nonchalantly respond
to the broadcasted murder of Mercutio. There’s something to be said about
highlighting the negative impacts of social media but there are too many
horrible real-life examples that reveal the lack of empathy on the web. An
offbeat film like this probably won’t wake people up about cyberbullying.
Imagining Romeo and Juliet – or @roamrome and @jewelz, per their social
tags– respond to each other or their families with Jay-Z gifs or scroll
past their subscriptions to the Criterion Channel sounds more like an
awkward joke but it’s exactly what we have here. Romeo didn’t click the
Pinterest and Letterboxd icons, but my mind wandered there anyway,
especially in the frequent moments where it seemed like the director had
run out of creative visual ways to advance his film, copping out by using
pre-recorded clips sent over SMS (such as when they get married).
Though it has its moments, it just doesn’t come altogether without
sacrificing the tension of the play’s tactile moments with back-and-forth
texting that can’t generate the same suspense. The term screenlife was
coined by producer Timur Bekmambetov, the impresario behind all the
associated films in the genre including this one.
R#J confirms to me one thing I assumed before clicking play
– screenlife should be strictly reserved for horrors and thrillers,
high-concept premises that can exploit the perils of delayed communication
in today’s world. I hope this sentiment is shared by the producer; I can
promise he would get more “likes” making an Unfriended 3 than pursuing a
#macbeth.
R#J plays online at the SXSW Film
Festival from March 16th to 21st.
