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Tuesday, 10 January 2006 |
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By D. W. O'Dell
 My main thought while sitting in a movie theater waiting for the film, Rent,
to begin, was that I was happy that Hollywood is once again producing
movies based on hit musical plays. Thanks to the success of the movie
version of Chicago the energy of creation is again flowing from
the stage to the screen instead of the reverse. I’m not sure why
Hollywood stopped making musicals based on plays, unless the concept of
a filmed version of Cats was simply too much for the Universe to allow.
That said, maybe the film version of RentRent that I was supposed to find it inspiring…but I didn’t.
The fault lies not with director Chris Columbus, who surprisingly does
a wonderful job of realizing the material. His previous work in the
first two Home Alone films, Mrs. Doubtfire, and two Harry Potter
treatments did not prepare me for his adept handling of adult material
or his excellent use of Manhattan (real and simulated) locations to
open up the play.
My problem is with the written material. The heroes of Rent
are bohemian artists living in condemned buildings in lower Manhattan.
The idea that they should pay rent in exchange for having a roof over
their heads is an anathema to them. They want to suffer for their art,
but they don’t want to suffer too much. Their motto is “No day but
today;” maybe that inability to plan for the future explains why four
of the main characters are HIV positive.
Anthony Rapp recreates his stage performance as Mark, the sort-of
leader of the artistes who is a brilliant filmmaker, although his
brilliance appears to come from his uncanny ability to point his camera
in the general direction of where things are happening. I’ve seen home
movies with better composition than his professional efforts at
filmmaking.
Things happen for no apparent reason. One member of the group (Taye
Diggs, seriously underused here) has married well and now owns the
buildings everyone else lives in (or, more accurately, illegally squats
in). At first he evicts them and takes all their stuff, then later he
gives them their stuff back and offers to let them stay rent-free. Why?
Who knows? A performance artist named, Maureen (Idina Menzel) is
supposedly impoverished, yet she is able to stage a one-woman show
which features multiple video screens, video tape effects, and all
sorts of electronic equipment (need I point out that Maureen appears to
be as talented at performance art as Mark is at directing?).
The decision to mainly use the original Broadway cast was laudable, but
it’s now over a decade since the show debuted and most look a little
long in the tooth to be innocent, idealistic college-aged bohemians.
Jesse L. Martin, now well known from his stint on Law & Order,
is excellent, but I swear there was some gray in his beard. One new
cast addition is Rosario Dawson as Mimi, the drug-addicted exotic
dancer that musician Roger (Adam Pascal) falls for because . . .
because she’s . . . did I mention she’s an exotic dancer?
Rent is well directed, well acted, and contains enough
imagination and energy to make the transition from stage to film. It
just never transcends its material as Chicago did. But who knows--maybe some clever Broadway producer will make a musical out of the movie. demonstrates the problem with adapting a stage musical
to the screen; characters and actions that seem fully realized and
inspiring when seen on stage may appear pale and clichéd on a two
dimensional screen. I could tell from the energy that went into
creating the movie version of |
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