Romeo and Juliet Article

Romeo and Juliet

Don’t bite your thumb on it.

By Dana Stevens

The first thing that I noticed about this article was the title, it states “Romeo and Juliet, Don’t bite your thumb on it.” Just by reading the title you can already see that the author has a negative opinion on the new movie Romeo and Juliet. The second thing that I noticed in the article is that it is actually quite entertaining. I enjoy the way Stevens gets her opinion across.

Diction: Stevens uses diction to get her point across very effectively.  She uses words like “lush” and “bodice-ripper” in the first sentence; these are not words that are usually associated with describing a movie. It seems like the author is using the words in a good way but than in the second sentence she says, “without big stars or a modern interpretive concept” setting up that the words “lush” and “bodice-ripper” are being used in a mocking way.  There are also some other weird uses of diction that add to the piece like “petulant” and “impetuousness” which I think she added to make herself look as though still a reliable author and opinion even though the article is quite critical. A pattern that I noticed in the diction was she repeatedly describes Juliet as young, she says, “babyish features”, “childlike”, and “youthful”.  Stevens even uses a French word, “mélange” which translates to mixture to add some variety to the word choice.

Syntax:  I noticed that the author starts some sentences with conjunctions such as “And Lesley Manville..” and also “But it’s Paul Giamatti…” to make relationships between ideas and to create a smooth rhythm in the paragraph. The author also uses syntax to create the criticism of Romeo and Juliet in a humorous tone. She writes sentences like, “Steinfeld has an open, childlike quality that’s well suited for showcasing Juliet’s youthful impetuousness and idealism, but she doesn’t quite pull off the transformation to tragic heroine, occasionally sounding a petulant Valley Girl note that I doubt was intended.”  The last section of the sentence solidifies the fact that the author does not find the movie to be very impressive and states her opinion in a humorous and mocking way.

Details: There are many examples of when the author added specific details to add to the article. One of the details she uses is when she says, “Valley Girl note” which is important because she could use many other different descriptions but she chose “Valley Girl”. When she is talking about Juliet’s lines in the movie Stevens says, “It doesn’t help Steinfeld either, that many of Juliet’s best speeches are either cut entirely or pared down to the bare bones…” when she ads in “bare bones” in the end I think that is an interesting word choice but it’s also an important detail because it explains how in the movie they don’t give justice to Shakespeare’s play.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2013/10/romeo_and_juliet_directed_by_downton_abbey_s_julian_fellowes_reviewed.html