MovieChat Forums > Private Romeo (2011) Discussion > DVD commentary and what doesn't work in ...

DVD commentary and what doesn't work in the film....

posted 11 years ago by tlcarpenter
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I listened to the commentary and thought it was funny that all the things that didn't work for me, they thought worked beautifully.

I found the commentary annoying because instead of explaining the meaning they were going for in the story, they would talk about how hot it was that day, and which actor sweated a lot and which didn't, and the actor's previous resumes. I wanted them to explain what these scenes were supposed to mean since the Shakespeare dialogue didn't match a lot of the actual story.

According to the director, almost every scene in his film worked BEAUTIFULLY!

Here's what I don't get. They state in the commentary that they didn't want homophobia to be present in the story or an issue in the military academy. But then why does Josh/Mercutio and Tybalt want to break up Romeo and Juliet? If no one cares that they were gay, then why all the drama in trying to keep them apart that results in attempted suicides?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

But I did enjoy the film. The performances are outstanding and it looks great. I enjoyed the use of the actual dialogue from the play, very much, and the actors handed it beautifully.

But without homophobia, or Romeo and Juliet being from rival academies or something, the reasons for keeping them apart made no sense.

Once again, listening to the commentary, the director was very proud of everything and really thinks he made a superb film. More power to him, but he came off just a bit delusional.

[–] jm10701 10 years ago

Private Romeo is about some guys studying Romeo and Juliet in school and acting parts of the play in their real lives. It's a fantasy. It's not supposed to make sense. It's also not supposed to be a modern version of the play, or a gay version of the play, or any other kind of version of the play. It's a riff on the play.

The play is just a sort of springboard for the movie, a trampoline the movie lands on occasionally but from which it takes great leaps in various wildly subversive and fantastic directions between those landings. The words are Shakespeare's, but the spirit is very much Alan Brown's.

It's supposed to entertain, which you seem to agree it did. It's also supposed to sabotage (in a very playful and lighthearted way) lots of traditional thinking, by both Shakespeare fans and the audience for gay movies - which it also succeeded in doing.

You think much of it made no sense because Shakespeare's play is so familiar to you that you unconsciously use it as the standard of "making sense". But if you look objectively at the original play, does it make sense? Of course not! It's an absurdly unrealistic story. From beginning to end it's FULL of preposterous, impossible, ludicrous coincidences and contrived plot twists. If anything, Private Romeo is more realistic than Shakespeare's play is.

So by saying that much of the movie "doesn't work" for you, you are proving that it does work. Without assaulting or offending you, it shook up some unexamined assumptions you've made about reality, about Shakespeare, and about the function of movies. That's what Alan Brown intended it to do, and he succeeded beautifully.

[–] blindvias-071407 10 years ago

There are only 7 cadets, and really only 6 of those seem to take part in reciting Shakespeare. The film needs some license in order to create something akin to the Bard's words. If you don't allow that, and expect this all to unfold like Shakespeare's play, then yes, the movie may not make sense.

If you expect everything in Private Romeo to track Shakespeare, then we would have 4 dead. But that really isn't the movie's intent, is it? I give credit that most of the dialogue is true to the play. Only a few lines are spare lines outside of what Shakespeare wrote. Therefore, it is a feast for those that appreciate Shakespeare's lines.

What does seem to track closely is how in Verona, the Prince warned the two families he would tolerate no more violence between them. Yet, Romeo and Juliet were affected by the continued fighting, and in the end suffered because of the feud between families.

At McKinley academy, the cadets were warned no trouble would be tolerated while their commander was absent. Yet, the cadets were quite troublesome: showing disrespect, teasing, bullying, drinking, gambling, recreational drug use, breaking curfew, playing loud music during the night, even running in the halls, and in the end fighting. And so Glenn and Sam suffer the consequences of the cadets failure to abide by the rules.