Romeo & Juliet has been adapted into many forms and tales, from Baz Lurhman’s modern day Romeo+Juliet to Kelly Asbury’s animated Gnomeo & Juliet, and it feels like everything else in between. So to see it adapted into a zombie film as it was in 2013’s ‘Warm Bodies’, itself adapted from Isaac Marion’s titular book, wasn’t incredibly surprising. This inevitability is partially why I took ten years to watch a film that, despite hearing positive mentions of online and from friends, appeared to be a re-telling of a tired tale, which like the featured corpses felt like little life remained in its retelling. Still on the 10th anniversary my interest was piqued, and so I delved into Jonathan Levine’s 2013 ‘Warm Bodies’, starring Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Dave Franco, Rob Corddry, and John Malckovich.
‘Warm Bodies’ begins with an internal monologue, not often seen in zombie films, by Nicholas Hoult’s yet unnamed character, who’s self-awareness is strong but whose self-control as a zombie is lacking. Still he knows he wants more in this life, and his only source of joy he receives is vicariously living through the memories of his victims, for when he eats their brains he sees and feels their memories. So when Hoult comes upon a young group of humans with his fellow zombies, they overtake the humans whereupon he then eats a young man’s brains. Hoult’s memories are suddenly filled with the deceased’s love for his girlfriend, who fortunately is the still-living beautiful girl before him played by Teresa Palmer. Against his zombie instincts Hoult’s zombie seeks to protect her by taking her to his isolated residence in an abandoned airplane. After what can best be described as romantic Stockholm syndrome, the two form a bond that begins to prove that there may be more to this connection than just a burgeoning romance.
Undoubtedly for many its the romance that’s the crux of the film, but for me the whole idea of ‘two people falling in love in a short time period because of course they would’ is rarely enough of a motivation for me to get through a film. This certainly doesn’t help when you imagine the zombie implications of it all, which along with the eating the boyfriend’s brains feels blegh. As time goes on it becomes less icky – in every sense of the word – however, what appealed to me about this film is the film’s use of the connection between the two leads to promote the broader message of human connection. I feel though it’s a rather surface level look at what love and friendship can mean, you can easily apply this to broader ideas of togetherness, and I’m sure the movie hopes we do that.
What even more pleasantly surprised me is how genuinely funny this film was. Rob Corddry in particular, always a delight on screen, had some especially poignant and hilarious lines that had me truly laugh out loud. Likewise Corddry and Hoult’s acting together as zombie friends with really only their faces and bodies, especially in the opening scenes, were quite funny as well. This helped cut through a lot of the bleakness you’d expect from a zombie film, and a Romeo and Juliet adaptation, and for that reason I appreciated these snippets of humor.
Despite coming at this less for the romance of it all, I still came away with an appreciation for what ‘Warm Bodies’ achieved. The film was able to upend zombie tropes and Shakespearean tropes alike, both of which felt in need of some revitalization. I also appreciated the positivity along the way, which is also an unlikely element of zombie films. So ultimately though I wasn’t rooting for the key love story at the heart of this film so much just for the romance of it all, the film overall still grew on me and ultimately warmed my heart.
