RENT the movie: One Year Later? Your thoughts... — Page 3

I remain mixed on this although I currently prefer the film over the stage show. Certainly given the last 2 times I saw it on Broadway it lacked anything approaching freshness from a very tired cast. I also never cared much for most of the characters on stage and therefore on film, although on film they come across better I feel but given they are mostly one dimensional on stage, I find there is more depth to them on film. Just. There is a great message buried in the musical but the poor characterisation on stage all but loses that.

I can never escape from the feeling that these are lazy slackers (mostly) who do not deserve the break they continue to whine about. Their troubles are mainly self-inflicted and they seem to demand charity/respect etc without being prepared to work for it or to earn it.

But it has a wonderful score which on film sounds great and the acting on film is mostly strong (well, I still dont rate Adam Pascal as an actor - singer: fantastic, though). Sadly as most of the cast are (and look) well, not young enought for their character's idealism to be convincing on film, more than once I felt "for god's sake, give it up and get a job".

I just re-read my "review" from a year ago (11/25/05), and I feel exactly the same today. I did rewatch the film about a month ago. Nothing has changed for me, but perhaps I'm a "special case." Here's my original post below...

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I didn't really want to write a formal review of this film, due to the very personal nature and effect it has had on me. I will start with my "qualifier" and then see if I can put it all into words...

The Qualifier: I knew Jon Larson when I lived in New York in the mid-'80s. We both worked at the same theatre in Michigan, although Jon got his union card and left the year before I started working there. A couple of years later, when I got "unionized" myself and moved to the Big Apple, we had mutual Michigan friends that were all starting out in the city, and that's how we met. I remember listening to Jon play us his music in a living room full of friends and talking passionately about the stories and the songs he was working on. This was not long before he started writing "Rent," incidentally. He was so excited that Stephen Sondheim had liked his music and had made a point of telling him so. He seemed to be on cloud nine about that (understandably). We listened to his latest demo tape with Marin Mazzie singing. We called him "Marv" (after Marvin Hamlisch). This was a running joke started by his close friends Marin and Scott Burkell, and Jon seemed to enjoy that and take to it in stride. He was a great guy. As nice as he was talented. So... several years later in Los Angeles, when I picked up a Newsweek magazine in an office to read about Jon's new show opening Off-Broadway... and in the first sentence, found out that our old Bohemian "Marv" had scored these amazing reviews and had also DIED suddenly... I fell immediately into a state of shock that I have never quite been able to disassociate myself from, whenever I see, hear, or talk about his "Rent." It's surreal to me. It feels like it happened to someone else, not him, not us... not this.

I walked in today to the movie theatre with a few "preconceptions," most of which proved to be wrong. I went in not thinking much of Chris Columbus as a director. He's not terrible in my eyes, just "ordinary" in his approach. I was a little worried about the new cast members and how they would fit in with a group so uniformly bonded by their experiences with the material. Again, I was wrong on both of these counts.

Let me start by saying that "Rent" is a great show. It's NOT a perfect show, and Jon knew that. It was in very good shape, and he knew that too. He was proud of it and rightfully so. But knowing Jon, he would have tinkered with it after the (ultimately successful) Off-Broadway run... changed things, edited things, and tightened and focused things for any possible Broadway run... but because he was robbed of that opportunity, the show was frozen in an "almost there" state. Forever a work-in-progress, like the painting of George Washington that isn't quite complete. I've grown to love that painting for what it is, not wishing for everything to be filled in and perfect. Just as I have grown to love "Rent" the exact same way.

Columbus did a terrific job of delivering Larson's "Rent" as a movie, faults and all. His use of camera movement to assist the heightened emotions and his eye for composition and content were really outstanding. I wasn't expecting that.

The cast surprised me as well in several ways. I was expecting a confident and steady hand from the ensemble of original cast members who knew these roles so well, but was a little mistaken by that assumption. The ones who don't have much (if any) experience in front of a camera faltered a bit initially, but NEVER stumbled completely. Most often, they worked a bit too hard at conveying their emotions. Not that they were phony or "stagy," but just a tad too MUCH, particularly in the first part of the film. I'm talking about Pascal, Heredia and Menzel in particular. The other original members who have had more time in front of a camera seemed to do better (Martin, Rapp and Diggs). All you have to do is look at the scenes with Roger and Mimi together. Dawson is a film actor, and she knows how much her eyes can show thought and feeling on screen. How much a single split-second glance can speak volumes. It comes off as effortless and natural, while Pascal seemed to work harder to show us his emotions. This was true in his scenes with Rapp, as well. Anthony knows the camera well enough already. Adam will learn to trust its lens as he gets more experience in future projects, which I'm sure he will have. And the other "new gal" Tracie knocked me out in all possible ways. She has a bright future in all media, if she wants it.

I was thinking how strange it is to watch a film that is 90% sung. "Moulin Rouge" was so stylized that I bought it without question. It was a fantasy-pastiche that created a world where anything was possible and even ultimately expected. But to see people singing virtually non-stop in a quasi-realistic, often intimate setting is a bit taxing after a while. And I'm not sure I've ever seen it pulled off completely successfully. That could be a flaw of the genre itself. An "opera-movie" is still not a proven or reliable format. "Rent" comes very close to pulling it off here... and I think "Jesus Christ Superstar" (the original movie) and "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" do so as well. But others ("Evita" and "Phantom" and even "Tommy") often leave me with a gnawing feeling of claustrophobia. I find myself wanting to come up for air a little more often than we get to, because of the confines of the material.

All of that said, there were many shining and thrilling moments: "Take Me As I Am" being at the top of the list. This was where Idina completely dazzled in front of the camera, and she and Tracie rose to a new height together in the film. Martin and Heredia's "I'll Cover You," as well as Martin's dramatic scene at Angel's memorial, were both terrific and very effective.

I found myself in tears several times watching this movie. I guess that was to be expected with my history. There was a time years ago, when I lived in New York City and knew people like these characters on screen. I knew the era. I knew the feeling. Hell, I knew the author. And I kept picturing "Marv" sitting in the audience right there with us... beaming proudly from ear to ear.

Loving every damn minute of it.

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