THE romantic heroine of Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet is to return almost 50 years after the Hollywood classic in a new version for the YouTube generation.
Olivia Hussey, 63, is to be reunited with her Romeo, Leonard Whiting, 64, for a British film that starts shooting this month.
Her daughter, 20-year-old India Eisley, a budding Hollywood actress who appeared in the 2012 film Underworld: Awakening, will play the role that made her mother an international star at the age of 16 in the 1968 movie.
Advertisement
In the new version, titled Social Suicide, the star-crossed lovers have to contend not only with their parents’ opposition, but also with the exploitative gaze of social media.
Explaining her decision to take part in a movie that subverts her greatest screen performance, Hussey said: “It’s still the same love story, but instead of the adults creating the tragedy, it’s one of the teenagers’ own generation.”
At a house party a video camera captures the moment at which the teenagers experience love at first sight. Footage of their passionate kiss is posted online to humiliate her. The parents of Juliet (renamed Julia) are horrified by the caption: “Ho Pro”.
The concept for the film was inspired in part by the personal experience of its producer and originator Janet Wells, as she observed the impact of social media on her sons aged 12 and 16, her daughter, 14, and their friends. “There may not be the same social taboos about getting together as there were with the Montagues and the Capulets, but nothing is private any more,” she said.
“For a teenager, everything in their personal life can change in an instant. One misplaced photo can lead to lifelong embarrassment; a text which goes unanswered can plunge them into despair.”
Advertisement
Wells, who lives in Putney, southwest London, raised the initial funding from four friends who each had a horror story about their children’s experience with social media.
The cast includes Neve McIntosh (Doctor Who’s Madame Vastra) while Bruce Webb, who directed The Be All and End All, will direct.
The story unfolds through a police investigation, and when they first intervene Julia lies unconscious after an apparent suicide attempt. Two teenagers are dead: among the suspects are Romeo’s best friend Mercutio, renamed Marc; her cousin Tybalt, or Ty; and Romeo, renamed Reese.
Their lives are recorded in such detail that the police can piece together every stage of the romance as they try to identify the perpetrators.
Advertisement
In the opening scene Julia records a video blog to share her top 10 reasons for not wanting a boyfriend. She says: “Statistics say I’ll meet ‘the one’ at 23, so why bother for the next seven years?”
Soon afterwards we see footage of the houseparty where the couple first meet. Reese is involved with his friends in a Jackass-style stunt, letting off smoke bombs at Tybalt’s home, all recorded by socially inept hanger-on Balthazar, who is desperate to gain notoriety online.
Balthazar captures their first kiss, continues to snoop on them when Reese climbs a drainpipe to get into Julia’s bedroom, and uses a telescopic camera pole to follow them into bed the first time they make love.
When the police scroll through social media and find the couple’s every shy endearment that night, they also discover Julia’s warning that her cousin wants to break them up. In the original play, Romeo learns too late that Juliet is not dead, but has taken a potion to fool her family.
In despair, he poisons himself and dies, then Juliet wakes to discover his body, and stabs herself to join him.
Advertisement
In Social Sucide the malign search for internet notoriety creates the motive for the tragic twist; for film lovers, though, Hussey and Whiting are always remembered for their tragic death. In real life they enjoyed a youthful romance, and with each now married to another partner, they remain friends.
This weekend Whiting, who still gets a steady stream of fan mail at his home in north London, and signs off as Romeo in every email to Hussey, said he met Zeffirelli earlier this year and felt he would approve of his decision.
He said: “It has been brought up to date but it still has the line of love and desire running through it.”