R#J Review (Sundance Film Festival 2021)

In fair Verona, a war as old as time is brewing between rival houses—but it’s being captured in a new way. Montague and Capulet Gen Zers are using their cell phones to document the eruptions of violence plaguing their communities. In the middle of it all, Romeo discovers Juliet’s artwork at a party, and the two inevitably fall in love. As tensions between their families escalate, the two plead for peace and desperately search for a way to escape their star-crossed destiny.

Told entirely through social media and smartphone screens, R#J is a bold adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that reinvents the world’s most enduring love story with style and lyricism, with black and brown youth at the heart of it all. Blending text messages and Shakespearean dialogue, R#J takes us into the subversive love language of the moment, where GIFs, Spotify playlist exchanges, and Instagram profiles kindle romance and unexpected windows of vulnerability. 

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