Romeo + Juliet and the Road To Perdition

I have to be careful not to spend too much time in the hostel's TV rooms. They seem to be perpetually tuned to one or both of the local Sky Movies channels, meaning that I'm constantly catching-up on films that I've always intended to watch, one day...

Well, several of those days seem to be this week.

One such film was Tom Hanks' Road To Perdition.


I remember seeing the trailer for this in the cinema in 2002.

"Every father is a hero to his son.
Every son holds the future for his father."

Frankly, this film was clearly going to be rubbish. With all the rain, dreary music and sour facial expressions, I really had no idea why anyone paid money to watch something that wasn't trying to make them happy.

A few months after that, I was at the cinema again, when the same trailer came on. But there was one difference.

Now my father had died.

"Every father is a hero to his son.
Every son holds the future for his father."

This time I think I sat there with my mouth hanging wide-open.

Those same words hit me with an aim so deadly accurate that I remembered them for years afterwards. Now that he was gone, my father was a hero to me – one who I had never recognised when he had been here. And since he'd gone permanently, I guessed I actually did 'hold the future' for him.

And that was just the trailer. Finally watching the actual film this week was involving, and I missed the sort of father/son relationship that's on show when he's teaching his kid how to drive, but for me I think the film will always be about that trailer.


Another movie this week was the funkily-named 1996 version of Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo diCaprio and Clare Danes. This was interesting to watch, but in a modern setting, Shakespeare's dialogue was just weird.

Surreal, in a sinister sort of way.