Rentheads and newcomers alike, be prepared to be disappointed in a weak movie adaptation of “Rent.” Director Chris Columbus brought the play to the big screen, but left the magic on the stage.
“Rent,” originally a Broadway musical, is based on Puccini’s opera “La Boheme.” The Pulitzer and Tony Award winning “Rent,” created by the late Jonathan Larson, tells the story of one year in the life of eight friends living in the East Village of New York City.
The movie does not diverge from the musicality of the Broadway version. It begins with all members of the cast on a stage belting “Seasons of Love.”
The group is made up of the following people: Roger, who is HIV positive and a former junkie; his roommate Mark, a filmmaker; Mark’s former lover, Maureen; her lesbian love interest Joanne, a lawyer; and Roger’s lover Mimi, the HIV-positive, drug-addicted dancer.
The best and most creative musical scene of the movie is the “Tango Maureen,” in which Mark and Joanne rant about the games Maureen plays with her lovers’ hearts. This was the only diversion from the original Broadway musical.
The second best musical scene is the song “Tonight” which is sung by Mimi (Rosario Dawson).
The character of Angel also provides many touching moments in the movie. Columbus does a good job of capturing the important influence this character has on the movie.
Tom Collins, also HIV-positive, is Mark and Roger’s former roommate and a computer genius. Angel is Collins’ lover, who is also HIV-positive and a drag queen street musician. Benjamin Coffin III is a former member of the group who married rich and became Roger and Mark’s landlord.
In the 525,600 minutes that make up the year during which the story takes places, the characters struggle with life, love, loss and AIDS-a powerful story.
The same lines from the play were used with very little divergence. The movie stuck very closely to the original Broadway musical. Most of the same costumes were used in the movie as in the original play.
Also notable was that “Rent’s” cast was made up of mostly of the original cast with Taye Diggs as Benny; Wilson Jermaine Heredia as Angel; Jesse L. Martin as Collins; Idina Menzel as Maureen; Adam Pascal as Roger; and Anthony Rapp as Mark. Newcomers are Dawson as Mimi and Tracie Thoms as Joanne.
Surprisingly, the accomplished Diggs’ role is benign. Heredia, Rapp and Menzel give the best performances.
Much of the essence and elements of the musical were captured; however, it did not translated well. Some of the spunk of the play was lost on screen. All the elements were there-the cast, the costumes, the songs-but the movie did not gel.
The movie was also melodramatic. It was extremely long, to the point where several people walked out of the theater.
Columbus could have captured the essence of the musical with a movie of appropriate length. Some songs and scenes could have been cut.
There was too much singing throughout the movie and the music was very loud. The script also was lacking, which took away from the movie and was not very time appropriate. The obvious lip-synching was also a negative in the movie.
The movie simply did not do the play justice. Go see the play.
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