Romeo's jilted ex finally gets the spotlight in trailer for Hulu's Rosaline
"Romeo and Juliet. It doesn't even sound right," bemoans Kaitlyn Dever's character
We all remember that one moment from high school English class. No, not when you realized that the titular young lover in that one 1968 version of Romeo And Juliet that your teacher definitely made you watch looked a whole hell of a lot like Zac Efron. The other one. When you realized that Romeo And Juliet, arguably the most famous love story of all time, was actually…a love triangle? Like Twilight? With some other random girl named Rosaline? And lo, a million memes were born.
The joke has been around forever: is there any better way to win a breakup than by watching your crazy, cheating ex either directly or indirectly kill not only himself but also his new girlfriend and five other people all in the span of, like, three days? Four centuries later, Hulu is answering the call of AP students and Shakespearean scholars alike: what would the great love story ever told look like from a different perspective?
Rosaline fits nicely into the current slate of media modernizing a large swath of history we’ll refer to as “the corset times” (sometimes successfully and other times… not so much). Set over Icona Pop and Charli XCX’s decidedly non-Shakespearean hit “I Love It,” Rosaline (played by Booksmart and Dopesick’s Kaitlyn Dever) narrates her woes to the audience and, well, anyone unlucky enough to stumble into her presence during this very famous and—we can only imagine—very frustrating week in the teenager’s life.
Eventually, our real hero befriends The Other Woman Who Shall Not Be Named (who also happens to be her cousin—remember that little nugget?) in a hair-brained scheme to steal back the love of her life that definitely won’t lead to suicide and misery for all. Seems like a fun, classic rom-com setup. What could go wrong?
Rosaline also stars Isabela Merced (Dora And The Lost City Of Gold) as Juliet, Kyle Allen (West Side Story) as Romeo, Minnie Driver (Speechless), Bradley Whitford (The Handmaid’s Tale), and Sean Teale (Little Voice).
The film will premiere on Hulu October 14.