In Baz Luhrman's Romeo & Juliet (1996), there is a rather extraordinary implication about the neurochemical basis for the couple's love-at-first-sight. People unfamiliar with illegal drugs may not have noticed this. The pill-popping was rather brief and the camera effects used to convey being on drugs may have just been passed off as part of the general cinematographic weirdness of the film. Also people tend to just tune out or forget things they don't understand. So I'll lay it out step-by-step, and then give my feelings on this interpretation.
The scene (I:4) that begins DVD chapter 6 (Sycamore Grove) occurs on the beach in some sort of amusement park. The Montagues are partying when Mercutio shows up in drag with invitations for the big Capulet party. Romeo objects to going, at which point Mercutio rattles off the Queen Mab speech. The speech is given a strange reading, during which Mercutio takes out a small box and opens it. The box contains a little white pill with a drawing on it in red of a heart pierced by an arrow, and he gives it to Romeo, who does some foreshadowing and then downs it while uttering the fatalistic line "But he that hath the steerage of my course, direct my sail". It was easy to miss and easy to forget, but if you watch it again you will see the undeniable truth that Romeo pops a pill before the Capulet party.
This creates some additions to the traditional interpretation - that Romeo is placing his life in the hands of fate and that the Queen Mab speech is referring to the queen of fairies. The movie is suggesting that Romeo is allowing this pill to be the agent of fate, and that Mercutio's speech, rather than referring to the supernatural (the Queen of the fairies), is referring to psychoactive chemicals, which are in some ways a modern parallel to magic and superstition. Drugs do things that seem strange and mystical, are sometimes used for spiritual purposes, and the powers-that-be are frightened of them and attempt, usually without success, to control them. The logo represents Cupid's arrow, thus love (which is also an emphasized word in the speech), and so the pill is probably supposed to be the popular love-drug ecstasy (MDMA). It is possible that some other chemical is meant, but this seems to be by far the most likely candidate.
After swallowing the pill, the movie cuts to Romeo's eyes darting strangely, and patterns of spinning fireworks and lights. They go to the party (I:5), where things are moving too fast and too slow, and Romeo is confused and disoriented, with sounds ringing strangely in his ears. Romeo says "Thy drugs are quick", a line which in the original was said much later, in the tomb, talking about the poison, but in the movie was put here and given a different meaning. Images continue to move weirdly and, after briefly encountering Juliet's father, the room seems to spins around Romeo. Now that we have specifically noted the pill he swallowed, we see that these effects are meant to suggest a chemically enhanced experience, and are not just randomly weird cinematography.
Then we cut to Romeo's face in the water - he has gone to the bathroom to get himself together (most likely because his drug trip in the crowded party was becoming unpleasant). There he encounters Juliet in the beautiful aquarium scene. Romeo is undeniably meant to be in the middle of a drug experience when he meets her, and I believe the suggestion is that Ecstasy is partially responsible for his instant attraction. After Romeo returns to visit Juliet (II:2), the following scene (II:3, in Friar Lawrence's cell) begins with a speech about herbs and plants and how they can do either good or harm, depending on which parts and amounts are used, an interesting tie-in which adds further power to the interpretation.
Note that this is very different from suggesting that their entire relationship is due to drugs. First, there is no implication that Juliet is on anything (besides fear of her father and the stubborn desire to choose her own husband, but this is not the place for that wholly separate digression on the subject of why the two of them get so intense so quickly). Second, E lasts for around 4-6 hours, and thus Romeo was free of its influence during the next days marriage and consummation that followed, as well as his fateful duel and subsequent flight. While a strong emotional experience involving chemicals can certainly have lingering effects long after neurochemistry returns to normal, I don't think Romeo's feelings can be entirely attributed to the pill (although it should be noted that according to rumor, during the early days of our culture's love affair with E, there were T-shirts made that said "Don't marry anyone the same month you met them on E"). In my opinion, it is just not enough to cause such precipitous action without their being "natural" emotions and affection present as well. The most that can be said, I think, is that it kick-started their relationship, making it possible for Romeo to become emotionally involved more quickly than might have happened otherwise.
While I admire the hubris of adding such a scandalous modern element to a well-established story, as a romantic, I think it hurts the plot to suggest that the relationship was due to anything other than true love, love at first sight, two soul mates fortunate enough to find each other. Part of the reason the original is so tragic is because of the intensity of the relationship, which is evidence of it being right & true. Adding chemical motivation for that intensity weakens the perfection of the tragedy. Drugs in general and E in particular are important parts of many peoples lives which I think should be discussed more honestly and openly on the big screen, and it's great that a major movie used E as a plot point, but I think it was wrong for this particular story.
For more info on the movie, here is the yahoo section on it. For more information on the drug Ecstasy (MDMA) try ecstasy.org, or go to the yahoo section.
Last Modified: The Beginning of the New Millennium
Patri Friedman / patri@izzy.com