The Baz Lurhmann version of Romeo and Juliet embodies the extreme emotion the play represents. Acts four and five stay true to the main ideas of the play, such as the two protagonists dying at the end. There are parts and components though that were added in that make the two acts even more gut-wrenching than they already were.
When Juliet goes to talk to Friar Lawrence about Romeo going away, she points a gun to her head, and then at the Friar when he will not let her kill herself. When the Friar tells his plan to Juliet, a play-by-play is shown of what is supposed to happen. Obviously the plan does not work, which makes seeing the Friar's plan in action much more surreal. When Juliet is about to go to "sleep" there is a flash of her in a wedding dress, and then back to her pajamas. Those few moments made the next scenes even more upsetting because they showed what could have potentially happened if everything did not go awry.
The audience does not see the nurse come in to find Juliet dead, only the Friar telling people to take her body away so they can prepare for a wake in her honor. The Friar is portrayed as much more nervous in the movie than depicted in the reading. He sweats a lot throughout the last two acts. After Balthasar delivers the news that Juliet is dead to Romeo, the protagonist screams and cries to Juliet in a deserted field. Romeo then gets into Balthasar's car and they rush into Verona territory.
In the play, audience members do not get to see how Romeo gets to Juliet. In the movie, there is a huge dramatic scene where Romeo is being hunted down by watchmen/soldiers/guards in Verona. Romeo has to run from the helicopters and at one point places someone at gunpoint so he can get into the church. Everything in that scene is full of action and moves very fast. The caliber of emotion and grand gestures is so high that it causes the scene to feel much more shocking and "in your face". Once Romeo reaches Juliet the moments that occur next feel much more surreal, which is what the play is trying to portray as well.
Juliet's shrine is gigantic. It is extremely over the top and features tons of flowers and candles throughout the whole church. In a way, the flowers and candles give a romantic and warm vibe to the scene, even though they are meant for Juliet's death. In the movie Juliet wakes up to see Romeo drink the vile and kill himself, which makes his death much more dramatic. He speaks to Juliet as he is dying and in the end Juliet ends up shooting herself in the head, causing blood to spill all over the dead couple.
In the play, Romeo and Juliet's death gives off a more numbing feeling. The scene is still dramatic, but it feels much more unfortunate rather than sad. The movie hits viewers with an over the top, in your face death scene. The amount of emotion is much higher than in the play because viewers can feel every second up to the deaths. The amount of struggle it took for the protagonists to get to where they are in the last scenes is understood more when it is seen instead of read, especially because after the two die, there is a flashback of them in love and happy. The movie really emphasizes on what could have been, to make what happened much worse.
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