RENT

Director: Chris Columbus (Harry Potter I & II, Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire)
Staring: Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Rosario Dawson, Jessie Martin, and more.

I am no expert on musicals. I’ve probably seen less than a dozen live, and this was my first introduction to this particular one. From what I have seen however, I think I understand some of the difficulties in bringing a musical to the big screen. There is an exaggerated earnestness and sincerity in the live theater that is rarely captured on screen (short of The Wizard of Oz or Singing in the Rain that is). It’s hard not to appreciate these things in the theater environment. On screen though, the camera often magnifies the grand gestures required in a large theater (whether figurative or the actual physical movements needed in a large space). There is no doubt that this is one of the most sincere, most earnest stories I’ve seen in some time. That by itself is worth quite a lot I think.

Rent is the story of a group of young Bohemians in New York’s east village in the 80s weathering the effect of AIDS on their free-living, free-loving lifestyle. There are characters overcoming drugs, overcoming AIDS, and loving their fellow man in an orgy of grand (if immature) emotion. These characters have only a short space to live. They are “renting” their lives and their love. That’s quite good.

Musically I didn’t find a lot I loved here. Most of the songs were perfectly good, but there isn’t much chance I’ll end up singing any of these in the shower. At one point I even wondered if the songwriter was simply going through the various preset beats on a Casio keyboard for each song. There was a tango, and a samba, and a, well you get the point.

My main complaint with this film lies with the director, Chris Columbus. This was an extremely ordinary bit of direction I think. To compare it with the musical film Chicago, this was almost an embarrassment visually and stylistically. I’ve never seen a musical yet that didn’t entirely inhabit a fantasyland. Rob Marshall, the director of Chicago, created a wonderful visual fantasyland where the actors could make their grand, earnest gestures in wonderful Broadway style. In this film, everything was rather ho-hum. It was almost a little silly seeing the actors behave theatrically on some average dirty New York street corner.

So I have mixed feelings on this film. Parts were certainly worthy. I can certainly recommend that the musical should be seen, although I imagine it would (and has) worked much better on stage than on the screen. At the same time, I was not particularly impressed by the construction of this film version of that story.

Standouts: Tony award winning, engagingly sincere bit of theater shown on the screen.
Blowouts: Entirely ho-hum direction.

Grade: C+

12/16/2005