Review: 'Rosaline' is a fun riff on literature's greatest romance, and a showcase for Kaitlyn Dever's sharp delivery

Lowered expectations sometimes can deliver some welcome surprises, as is the case with “Rosaline,” a direct-to-sreaming rom-com that gets its laughs by playing with the tropes of the most famous romantic drama of all.

Kaitlyn Dever, so wonderful in “Booksmart” and the only good thing in “Dear Evan Hansen,” plays the title role, a free-thinking woman in Verona, Italy, circa 1600 — when being independent and career-minded isn’t what a lady is supposed to be, as her father (Bradley Whitford) regularly reminds her. Rosaline dreams of being a cartographer, while also dreaming of finally being able to go public with her romance to a hunky young Verona man, and stop the cavalcade of old men who want to get her into an arranged marriage.

There’s a catch: The young man is Romeo Montague (Kyle Allen), whose father (Nicholas Rowe) is bitter enemies with Rosaline’s uncle, Lord Capulet (Christopher MacDonald).

And there’s another catch: When Rosaline gets stranded with another forced suitor — a handsome soldier, Dario (Sean Teale) — she misses her chance to be wooed by Romeo at the Capulet family’s masquerade ball. When she finally gets back, she finds that Romeo has suddenly fallen for someone else. What’s worse, that someone is Rosaline’s younger cousin, Juliet (played by Isabela Merced, from the live-action “Dora the Explorer” movie and this year’s “Father of the Bride” reboot).

Rosaline makes it her mission to stick close to Juliet, in a sneaky attempt to break up the new lovebirds. Rosaline gets her gay friend Paris (Spencer Stevenson) and her nurse (Minnie Driver) into the plot — and drags in Dario, who turns out not to be so awful, as grooms in a forced marriage go.

The screenplay is by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, veterans of such romances as “500 Days of Summer” and “The Fault in Our Stars,” so they understand how to align story beats with heart beats. They’re adapting Rebecca Serle’s best-selling novel “When You Were Mine,” which references “Romeo & Juliet” from the setting of present-day California — and the script’s transfer to the Middle Ages lets Rosaline deliver the snarky, modern take on the 400-year-old romance.

Director Karen Maine — whose celibacy camp comedy “Yes, God, Yes,” was a bright spot during COVID-era streaming — keeps the jokes and the romance briskly paced and sprightly. Maine’s best tool is Dever, who gives a tightly wound performance as a modern woman trapped in this Verona finery. The result is a perfect slumber-party movie, and a romantic comedy that delivers on both parts of the phrase.

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‘Rosaline’

★★★

Starts streaming Friday, October 14, on Hulu. Rated PG-13 for some suggestive material and brief strong language. Running time: 96 minutes.