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GCSE English teachers can relax: almost two decades after Leonardo DiCaprio’s poster-boy Romeo, Shakespeare just got sexy again, with Orlando Bloom playing the Bard’s star-crossed lover-man.
This record of David Leveaux’s 2013 production captures Bloom’s Broadway debut via nine cameras. We get every audience cough, splutter and squeal (mostly when a hoodie-wearing Bloom first arrives on stage on a motorbike – in one of the play’s bigger missteps).
OK, it’s not Baz Luhrmann-inventive, but Bloom’s playful Romeo and Condola Rashad’s sweetly virginal Juliet are beautiful to watch. And Leveaux’s stripped-down staging strikes an ominous note of the tragedy to come.
James Mottram is a freelance film journalist, author of books that dive deep into films like Die Hard and Tenet, and a regular guest on the Total Film podcast. You'll find his writings on GamesRadar+ and Total Film, and in newspapers and magazines from across the world like The Times, The Independent, The i, Metro, The National, Marie Claire, and MindFood.