My eldest daughter is studying William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in school. Because I’m something of a Shakespeare geek, I decided to rent Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, which I’d never seen, for us both to watch.

And I fell in love.

In case you haven’t seen this over the top adaptation, Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet involves handguns instead of rapiers, juiced up hotrods, and the most flamboyant Mercurio who spends a quarter of the movie in drag. And it’s WONDERFUL! I was thrilled by the weird sets, the helicopters flying overhead, and the wild costumes, but I think the main reason that I loved the movie was because Luhrmann (and Shakespeare) made me believe that Romeo (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and Juliet (played by Claire Danes) really could fall in love in one day.

And that, my friends, is not an easy thing to do.

We live in a nasty, cynical age, although I suppose one could argue that Shakespeare’s time might’ve been worse. At least we don’t literally burn people at the stake anymore. To fall in love takes a certain innocence–a certain trust–that many of us no longer seem capable of. Furthermore, we seem to delight in our hardened states. Mention Romeo and Juliet and many people will fall all over themselves to tell you how much they hate the play. How Romeo had a crush on another girl the night he meets Juliet. How Juliet is just too young. How silly the whole thing is. And yet…

And yet there are lines in that play that sing, they’re so beautiful. Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die/ Take him and cut him out in little stars,/ And he will make the face of heaven so fine/ That all the world will be in love with night/ And pay no worship to the garish sun. It’s easy to say that Shakespeare’s lovers are too young, too silly, to know if they’re really in love. Perhaps Shakespeare is merely winking his eye at all of us and only the naive can’t get the joke. But if his lovers aren’t in love, then why does he give them such gorgeous lines?

I prefer to remain naive, hopelessly out of touch, ridiculously simple, and believe Romeo and Juliet really are in love.

To succumb to romantic love is a folly–and a blessing–only afforded to humans. It is, perhaps, the highest, most pure pinacle of our existance. Perhaps that’s why so many mock romantic love–they fear it. In order to take romantic love seriously, they would have to open themselves to uncertainty and to wonder. It’s safer, perhaps, to hide behind cynicism.