When I saw &Juliet in London, I didn’t know most of the music, but a group of young women seated nearby were bouncing in their seats, which was a good sign, I thought.
My complaint about SLIH was that it looked too generic. The film was famously set at the Hotel Del Coronado, in San Diego. The Hotel Del has a very distinctive look that was captured in the film. The look of the sets for the hotel scenes could have evoked the Del’s architecture but didn’t. Mentioning “San Diego” several times in the script does little good, if what makes San Diego distinctive isn’t shown. The group also goes off to party in Tijuana, which, ok, was possible in the time period (much harder now, with border restrictions). But, Tijuana looks very generic, too.
Part of the farcical effect is that a bunch of attractive people are having fun (and adventures) in “exotic” locations. I enjoyed SLIH when I saw it in early November, but what I’ve outlined here remain my criticisms of the version I saw then.
Bill, in San Diego |
