Parents' Guide to Romeo and Juliet (2013)

ROMEO AND JULIET's titular hero is the stuff of teen dreams; he is made as appealing here as can be. He's an artist (a broody one, too), a heartfelt romantic and impetuous, driven to grand gestures and wearing shirts barely cosseted. Booth fares fairly well with the Bard's challenging lines, reciting them with real-life cadence. It's too bad that his counterpart, Steinfeld, doesn't. She doesn't so much say her lines as mutter them, gobbling up the beautiful poetry. She doesn't shortchange the material when it comes to acting, however. Steinfeld plays it straight and it suits the film well. Booth and Steinfeld may not share a white-hot chemistry, but they are starry-eyed, indeed.

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes wrote this remake, and it's prone to soap opera-ish flourishes. (Director Carlo Carlei doesn't do it any favors, either.) The music is overdone, as are the lingering shots of Booth's handsome face. Fellowes' and his cinematographer's take on Juliet is quite obvious, too; they encase her in a gauzy, dreamy light -- cheap shots that curb the movie's potential. And Westwick's Tybalt seems to relish his role too much. This adaptation of Romeo and Juliet won't break new ground like Baz Lurhmann's did. It isn't lush like Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version, either. But it's pretty and earnest in wonderful ways, and that's nothing to scoff at.