Writer: Sivarasa Sothivadivel

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Watch this if you liked: “Romeo + Juliet”, “West Side Story”, “Goal”

Starting off like "Bend It Like Beckham", this 2005 Brazilian rom-com is a light-hearted, loose re-telling of the Shakepeare tale where Luana Piovani and Marco Ricca are team-crossed lovers whose households are not Capulet and Montague, but Palmeiras and Corinthians, two of the best-supported football clubs in the country.

Alfredo Baragatti (Luis Gustavo) is a passionate football fanatic in the board of directors for Palmeiras. However his leggy, footballing daughter Juliet (Luana Piovani) falls in love with nervous eye doctor Romeo (Marco Ricca), a die-hard supporter of rivals Corinthians who chairs of the fanclub. From a field injury, a chance encounter at the clinic now blossoms into a romance but an all-out family war beckons when the couple find their love tested by fierce objections of their union. That is, after they even get to admitting their allegiances to each other!

The comedy in this film is very conventional but the story is dribbled forward with delightfully great ease as the acting from both the main and supporting cast are solid and very watchable. Luis Gustavo, playing the excitable board member and forbidding father, can be singled out as the highlight performance of the movie. His energetic and completely sincere portrayal is so convincing that you start believing how it's morally wrong for two people from different teams to be mere friends, never mind lovers!

At any rate, "Romeo And Juliet Get Married" is an excellent opening opportunity to learn about traditional team rivalry between football clubs that we don't get to see every day. Thanks to its 90-minute running time (match-long, coincidentally), we can expect a sort of popcorn movie to be enjoyed by couples who love sports.


Cinema Online, 16 October 2009