Rosaline

Rosaline is the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet, except this time it is told from the point of view of Romeo's jilted ex, the woman who Romeo first claims to love, before he falls for that eastern rising sun, Juliet.

Rosaline is of course the barely mentioned previous apple of the famed Romeo’s eye, the woman he first mooned over before a chance encounter at a costume ball set him on the path to both a true love for the ages, and a storied tragic ending. In this film, Romeo is even more full shit than has always been obvious, as Rosaline discovers that the man who she thought was her true love has left her for another, a women he now is loudly proclaiming to be his actual true love, all while spouting the same flowery bullshit to her that he did to Rosaline. Not one to let things go easily, Rosaline vows to steal him back, and comedy ensues.

You know how Clueless is based on Emma? Well, now imagine that someone then took Clueless, stripped out all the direct allusions to Emma, and then shoved it into a kind of smirking and farcical interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, and set the result in the time of the Renaissance in Italy, but with a wry modern day twist, and that’s pretty much Rosaline.

Is it dumb? I mean… yeah. Did you not just read my description? Of course it’s dumb, that’s the point. It’s also silly, cute, and fun.

Also, I love Kaitlyn Dever, talented, charismatic, I think she’s great, and could be a real Hollywood star someday. Here, she gets to pratfall, flounce around, and flex her comedy chops in this broad little fluffy farce that is full of all of the expected nods to the Bard, with a few modern day jokes and some pop music thrown in to jazz it up.

In the simplest of terms, Rosaline is a cotton candy film, and cotton candy is delicious, even though there really isn’t a lot to it.