Rent

The musical RENT is a film adaptation of a Broadway play. I've recently seen a pretty dang good Chicago production of it. It's got no shortage of heart, lots of energy, and lots of laughs and tears. It's also got some weaknesses that are precariously close to being its death blow. Its flaws don't kill it, but they come close.

The performances are absolutely amazing. I don't have a single critical thing to say about any of the actors.

Musically, I know this music has made the global rounds and it's huge. I don't think there's anything bad to say about the musical score either.

But looking critically at RENT, both as a story and as a film, reveals glaring flaws that keep me personally from falling head-over-heels in love with it and becoming a full-fledged RENT-head. This story has some problems that are both unfortunate and major, paradoxically leaving me with a sense of disingenuousness. Which doesn't make sense considering its origin, where it came from, Larson. I shouldn't be able to call 'BS' on RENT and be justified, and yet I can.

RENT assumes rather than earns its authenticity.

RENT has an unflinching, unapologetic self-centeredness that both serves it and cripples it. It has devoted so much focus and effort into being Gen-X'y, bohemian, and anti-establishment, that it has overlooked having a genuine identity of its own. Its uniqueness is stereotypical. It's confined to its freedom. Its portrayal of village artists and photographers is obvious, clunky, one-dimensional, cliché. The film is far too self-congratulatory to even consider noticing this.

RENT is trying (plaintively?) to make its characters' last year on Earth a celebration, but the thing is, I feel like a terrible situation of tremendous gravity, urgency, and despair has been turned into something of a 3-ring circus. On some level I feel like I have to question how seriously this was meant to be taken. Only its origin saves it from being creatively bankrupt. The exact same story coming from any Hollywood writer would rightfully get burned at the stake. Ultimately, these decisions ARE Larson's prerogative. I guess that being homeless and your imminent AIDS-related death doesn't automatically require an uptight documentary-style treatment.

RENT's excessive prettiness is also a big detriment to the film's authenticity, honestly. These people are awfully beautiful to be homeless AIDS victims. These are all designer characters. Their appearance is a deliberate, calculated, manicured image designed to make the idea more digestible. I rather suspect some watch this so they can feel like they've adopted some of the suffering of an underprivileged group of people. Do those individuals spend any actual time with the homeless? Who's to say. This mentality has infected other visual aspects of the film, too. Everything is so manicured and staged it becomes false. Everything is designer and Hollywood and perfect, including--nay, ESPECIALLY the abandoned buildings and alleys. The cinematography is a technical masterpiece and everything happens much too perfectly for me to believe in the world of RENT. It's not to be unexpected in a musical, but the nature of the subject matter changes the game quite a bit. Would I apply that equally to all films everywhere? Unfortunately, we're in the territory of art criticism here and it's subjective--and context matters, so no. For instance, Chicago has all the exact same traits, but they work for the film it instead of against it.

The entire scene with Sarah Silverman is the epitome of what I'm talking about. It fails to be the stark contrast with the rest of the film that it's trying to be. Furthermore, the entire subplot is an absurd non sequitur, but that's beside the point. It's trying to contrast how perfectly neat and tidy this corporate world is with how free and loose the world of the rest of the film is, but the entire film is actually neat and tidy--the spontaneity and freedom are artificial. I don't buy it.

But thanks to the performances, damn, RENT sure does have a fire in its britches.

It really challenges you to drop your hangups and relax and enjoy the ride.

I'm not a RENT-head, nor do I hate it. I don't think it's mediocre, canned, or kitsch. I don't think it's amazing or enlightening. Calling it pretentious isn't exactly fair, though there is a pretentiousness to it. I do, however, feel confident in saying both that it has flaws and has something to it.

So, how you feel about RENT will always come down to how deeply you connect to the characters and how much you're feeling the music. Is it an electrifying, heartbreaking celebration of life and love, or is it a mockery? Both cases could be made. My bottom line opinion: RENT is successful in spite of itself. The actors work harder than they should have to to sell a story that's working against them, confined by excessively stiff character molds--and they are so good, they pull it off. What's strong is incredibly strong. But to pretend its flaws didn't exist would be, for me, an intellectual suicide.

So I'm reading the reviews...none seem too terrible, most are lukewarm, and some are even good. But one theme seems to override them: the material is "dated." Figures that journalists, whose livelihoods depend on presenting news flashes that will easily fall into the shadows after something more captivating happens, would find this material dated. You really think the topic of people living with -- not dying from -- AIDS is dated? Wake-up, friends...I'm not one to throw around statistics, but even I can tell you that AIDS is a much bigger problem today than when Jonathan Larson -- a genius in his own right -- wrote this almost 20 years ago. And drug addiction? Yeah let's not even guess how much that statistic has surged.

True, the material is not as shocking as it was when it first graced the stages of NYC 10 years ago. But -- though I never knew the man -- I have a feeling Mr. Larson was not going for shock value. I am sure he realized in his day that his masterpiece would create quite a stir, but I highly doubt that was his purpose. What was it, then? If you ask me, it is obvious ...the human condition.

The elements of humanity that satiate the stage version are virtually all apparent in the film version. These characters are vastly different from each other on the surface -- but listen to their songs. They are all experiencing life. And not only that, for the most part they aren't afraid to experience life -- the devastations, the love, the convictions, the laughter, the tears. Just listen to Seasons of Love -- it's all in there. That song, to me, is the premise of Mr. Larson's story -- this is life. It isn't necessarily glamorous, it isn't always glorious, but this is what happens in a year of these peoples' lives. And the one thing that gets them through it is the fact that they have each other -- their love for one another overshadows all of the intricacies of day-to-day life. And that theme, to me, is never dated, especially when it is portrayed so well, as Chris Columbus and the incredible cast have managed to do.

I applaud everyone who had any part in this film -- aside from the excellent adaption of Jonathan Larson's exquisite piece of art, I think it is extremely important to constantly expose our society to controversial topics, about which most of us don't like to think. And I think the ones that are dubbed "dated" are the most important, because it means that those are probably the ones we have forgotten. But just because it seems "dated" does not mean it has gone away.

"Rent" is an excellent adaptation of the stage musical. It is handsomely filmed and very well acted. The movie version takes the story out into city's real locations.

Most of this movie is singing, but it is so well done it never breaks the 'suspension of disbelief' that as an audience we grant the fiction we are watching.

This 'rock operetta' is about a group loft-dwelling 'Bohemian' New Yorkers, some of whom have AIDS. The stage version has a devoted following of 'Rentheads' including director Chris Columbus, for whom this film was a labor of love.

I saw it with several young people and they really connected with the story's message of friendship, tolerance and living every day to the fullest. Some elderly members of the audience thought the music was being played too loud and they couldn't identify with the lifestyle depicted in the story.

This movie could attain the cult status of the stage musical.

I am very surprised at some of the negative reviews for this film. I never saw the Broadway musical on which the movie was based, so I don't have the advantage of having the live performance to compare to the movie. I have to say that the film really touched me, and I generally haven't liked most of the recent musical films that I've seen. All of the songs in Rent have heavy and deep meanings behind them since there's hardly any spoken dialogue. This means that Rent moves forward on the strength of its songs. Each number furthers the plot and reveals another aspect of a character.

Playwright Jonathan Larson was an amazing human being with such a talent for - at the time he wrote it back in the early 90's - being so "out there" and taking the risk of writing about AIDS and homosexuality, and ultimately having his work find its way into the hearts of so many people. If you wrote an actual script in which the young author of such a wildly successful Pulitzer winning musical dies the night after its dress rehearsal after being misdiagnosed by two different hospitals, nobody would believe you, but that is exactly what happened. It is also a shame that the actual reality of life in Alphabet City (now very much gentrified) and the nature of the AIDS crisis and treatments have changed so much that many people might not consider this film's greatness because they will regard it as out of date. I guess I just found the movie to be brilliant because it wasn't supposed to be absolutely realistic, it was supposed to evoke emotion, and that it did, at least for me. None of the individual relationships get that much screen time, yet I really cared deeply about all of these characters, both as a group and individually.

You could really feel the urgency of time pressing on the characters that had AIDS - the urgency to create, the urgency to love, - since, in 1990, there were not a lot of therapies that effectively prevented HIV from turning into full blown AIDS as there are today. Also, if you are not moved by Collins' tribute to Angel in the reprise performance of "I'll Cover You", all I can say is that you have no soul. Jesse Martin does a splendid job of displaying a genuine sense of loss, grief, and love that is the best performance in the entire movie.

Rent is one of those few films that I like to watch over and over just to see if I have missed anything. It does seem like some of the movie's detractors are being a bit snobby about the fact that Chris Columbus, who is well known for directing family films, directed this movie. Unfortunately, Bob Fosse is no longer with us, because I have found myself wondering more than once what he would have done with this material.

Please forgive the cheesy opener. I know that "Rent" hasn't started off with the best press in the world. Some questioning Chris Columbus' direction, some questioning the actors, some questioning the film in general. All I can say, however, is wow! I must admit that I was extremely skeptical about the entire project, and that I'm not a "rent-head", and this wasn't one of the movies on my wish list to see, but it satisfied me plenty. First off, lets talk story: most know the story, the one of eight East Villagers struggling with everyday life, with a few extremes. Just problems like money issues, drug addiction, and AIDS! A story that could easily be drove full speed into cliché heaven, but doesn't. It makes you feel the ups and downs of these characters. And how they convey all this not only through dialogue, but through song as well. Which brings me to my next point: the music. Being a theater major, I have heard the original cast album quite a few times, and not that it was bad, its just the movie music has this "pop" to it that vibrates your eardrums and your heart in the best ways. And like I said, no disrespect to the original. My final point centers around what many are saying will destroy any chances of this movie entering the Oscar race: the direction. Well, sorry to disappoint the Columbus skeptics out there who think he should stick to "Home Alone's" and "Harry Potter's", but he captured exactly what this movie was about. The grittiness, the hardships, life, love, NEW YORK! He gives the movie realistic credibility, which is always hard to accomplish with musicals (i.e. - people breaking into song and dance on the subway). These people sing, and it makes you think no differently of life. And to touch up on one more thing, the acting, what can you say? This cast overcame unbelievable obstacles to make this work, and they did just that. Anthony Rapp does an amazing job in leading this cast. "La Vie Boheme" hasn't left my mind since I left the theater. Adam Pascal and Rosario Dawson are such a couple to watch. Such chemistry between the two. Their developing relationship throughout the movie makes you laugh, cry, and, well, cry a little more. Another scream of a relationship was Idina Menzel and Tracie Thoms as Joanne and Maureen. Talk about an unlikely couple! Somehow, though, they make it work oh so well. Taye Diggs is gold, as usual, as the roommate turned landlord to Mark and Roger. The two that really caught my eye, though. The performances that will go in my photographic movie character memory in a very special spot are Angel and Collins (aka Jesse L. Martin and Wilson Jermaine Heredia). Two guys I have yet to see on film (exception with Martin on "Law and Order") brought to the movie what this movie was about the most, and that is love. "I'll Cover You", sung by the duo, will melt your heart in a second.

In conclusion, all I can say is just give this movie a chance. Don't just go off the negative buzz, because this truly is a beautiful movie. A movie that will have you appreciating your life more and more by the second. The movie that will take you on the emotional roller coaster of life. See the Holiday movie of the year.

"No Day but Today"