After watching the film Gnomeo and Juliet, pay attention to these really interesting details that reference Shakespeare’s works in it:

  1. Look closely at the address where the two families live. Verona Drive of course refers to the City of Verona. And what about the numbers? Can you spot the hidden message? (It’s a famous quote from Hamlet!)

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2. Other plays are referenced by name, such as an “As you like it” ticket on Featherstone’s notice board, and the Teapots van makes a reference to the play The Tempest.

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3. William Shakespeare himself appears on the film as a statue on a park in Stratford-upon-Avon, the place where he was born:

 

4. Many quotes are taken directly from the original text:

From the Balcony scene (Act II, scene II): Nanette says “Parting is such sweet sorrow“, and then Gnomeo repeats her words. These are words from the original scene, and they mean that saying goodbye can be sweet but really sad as well.

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From the Wedding scene (Act II, scene V): Friar Lawrence says, in the original text: “These violent delights have violent ends”, making a prophecy about the tragic ending. This phrase is said by the statue of William Shakespeare when he tells Gnomeo about the original characters.

5. Some other phrases are paraphrased, changed a bit, but they keep the meaning from the original text:

In the Balcony scene, Juliet (the gnome) says, thinking about Gnomeo: “Because you are blue, my father sees red, and because I am red, I am feeling blue”. Here, she uses colours as metaphorical expressions to say that her father is angry and she is really sad, and this same idea is expressed, in other words, in the original play.

At “the old Lawrence place”, Featherstone says: “A weed by any other name is still a weed”, paraphrasing Juliet’s phrase from the original balcony scene:

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