Romeo and Juliet, Unchained

Last night, I found myself watching William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which had arrived earlier in the day via Netflix. Why Romeo and Juliet? It's still better than watching "2 Broke Girls," for example. In some foreign countries, in fact, people are strapped into chairs and forced to watch a marathon of "2 Broke Girls." So far, no one has made it through more than three episodes in one sitting. The last I heard, the United Nations considers this to be an even worse form of torture than waterboarding.

When I mention Romeo and Juliet, I do not refer to the 1968 version, which I saw in eighth grade and which had to be censored by my English teacher. Nor do I mean the math-friendly Romeo + Juliet 1996 remake, which starred future drowning victim Leonardo di Caprio as Romeo. No, the particular version of the film I refer to, scripted by Julian Fellowes of "Downton Abbey" fame, came out last fall and was just released on DVD. It stars Hailee Steinfeld, who was also in the 2010 remake of True Grit, as Juliet.

Girl appears in a lot of remakes a lot of movies, apparently! Am I right?

At any rate, the film, in case you were wondering, is a pretty decent effort, in spite of some extra dialogue added in there by Mr. Fellowes that, I'm sure, the Bard did not mean to be there. It has all of the elements that a Romeo and Juliet movie ought to have: a whirlwind courtship, eloping, family feuds, fighting, murder, and the like. So, in many ways, it is much like a "2 Broke Girls" episode, only with likeable characters, a coherent plot, clever dialogue, and none of that annoying laugh track.

As I watched the movie, I found myself going off on a tangent and thinking about an idea I hadn't previously considered: What if Romeo and Juliet hadn't died so young? What if the friar's note explaining Juliet's "death" had reached Romeo like it was meant to and they, in fact, had survived the whole nasty ordeal? What would the rest of their lives together have been like?

Hollywood would have demanded a sequel, for one thing. And this follow-up effort might show some good times but also depict the two star-crossed lovers growing distant and apart after actually getting to know each other for longer than, say, the two or three infatuated, twitterpated days they spent as a couple in the film. Romeo would eventually grow tired of Juliet's incessant nagging to stop leaving his dirty tights lying all over the cottage and would be annoyed at the Capulet family's many attempts to get her to divorce him and marry someone of a higher social standing, while Juliet would get unnerved each time Romeo murdered yet another member of her family over some petty argument as, say, the proper scoring method in a game of Scattergories.

Would it have lasted even a whole year? A month? A week?

This sequel would, unfortunately, also have a tragic ending. Because if there's one thing movies and TV have taught us, it's that you can't tempt fate, nor can you change it! Juliet, now in her late 30s and sick and tired of the whole sordid affair, confronts Romeo for one last time to see if he really loves her or not before she leaves him forever and runs off with some other guy, probably played by either Mark Ruffalo or Paul Rudd—whoever's cheaper. Unshaven and unkempt, wearing a wife beater, with a beer gut hanging out, and sitting in front of the TV, pretending not to hear her as she pours out her soul, he instead is intently focused on what's on TV.

Naturally, he is watching "2 Broke Girls."