POPSUGAR chatted with R#J star Diego Tinoco about the dangers of social media, his role as Tybalt, and how he's not so different from On My Block's Cesar.
Camaron Engels and Francesca Noel appear in “R#J” by Carey Williams, an official selection of the NEXT section at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. (Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute)
This review contains spoilers.
Reimagined in Carey Williams’ Gen Z inspired “R#J” is the infamous age-old story of star-crossed lovers, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Set in the modern day, this rendition follows Romeo and Juliet as they fall in love entirely through social media and their smartphone screens.
Straying from the original script, the characters use modern-day slang through text and social media but Shakespearean English in video calls/livestreams. Though a unique selling point at first, after about 15 minutes when social media’s gimmick wears off, the film is left constrained by these tropes.
Every generation has their iteration of the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet, whether it s the titular 1968 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli or the iconic Baz Luhrmann-directed 1996 feature starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Now, there s
R#J, Carey Williams s bold technological take on the tragic tale of teenage lovers that spins the traditional story on its head. In the Gen-Z-centric adaptation, which premiered at the virtual Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 30, Williams poses the question of what would happen if Romeo and Juliet were members of the social media-savvy generation that have only lived in a world where everything happens online.
How ‘R#J’ Cast and Filmmakers Brought Shakespeare Into the Diverse, Digital Age (Video)
Sundance 2021: Director Carey Williams said the push for representation in Hollywood made it feel like the right time to bring back “Romeo & Juliet”Jeremy Fuster | February 1, 2021 @ 1:55 PM Last Updated: February 4, 2021 @ 8:22 AM
Shakespeare’s famous tale of doomed lovers Romeo and Juliet has been reinvented countless times, but “R#J,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Saturday night, tells the tragedy through computer screens and social media.
“You think about why there needs to be another ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ but this way we’re telling it gave us a reason to tell it,” director Carey Williams said at TheWrap’s Sundance Studio presented by NFP and National Geographic. “The representation we have in the movie gave us another reason, especially with the…world that we’re in today. So I was excited about that, excited about expanding my vo
Premiere: Jan. 30th 7:00 p.m.
There are a lot things that make me old, but a version of William Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet that makes
Baz Luhrmann
‘s psychedelic and visionary
Romeo + Juliet feel like an old-school, traditionalist take on the material may take the proverbial cake, and while it’s not entirely successful as a film, director Carey Williams’ feature debut,
R#J, does do that much.
R#J tells the tale of a war brewing between rival houses, but captures it in a new and genuinely unique 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 (