Posted: 11/25/2005

Rent

(2005)

by Aaron Riccio

Rent is a good movie not because it’s a good movie, but because the musical version is such a good musical. All that double-talk (like the witty talk-song “lyrics” of both) can be a little confusing, so, plainly put: you can’t make a bad movie with Rent’s music. However, you can make a faithless adaptation. You can hit the notes and still miss the point. This is pretty much the original cast from Broadway ten years ago, and the replacements, like Rosario Dawson, more than hold their own. No, it’s the director’s fault: Chris Columbus has learned nothing more about adaptations since Harry Potter. He’s the king of cheap knock-offs: superficially pleasing, short-lived and ultimately defective.

Now, Rent is a complicated musical, so a narrow focus is necessary. Songs touch on gay rights, the AIDS epidemic, friendship, and the compromise between personal creativity and social necessity. Presented as a modern opera, or the rock equivalent, Rent succeeded through intimacy and the tight lens of these few lives (stereotypes with hearts of gold from which one could draw larger conclusions). One of the reoccurring themes is even “there’s only us, there’s only this.” But that’s not the film Columbus wants to make, and so Rent isn’t the film we get. Instead, we get a movie that wants the fantasy of Chicago (even though Rent is hyper-realist) and the epic scope of Moulin Rogue (though Rent is painstaking because it’s mundane). We get a musical that does all but focus on the music - the scope is so huge that the songs become background and the singers are lost in the atmosphere. Again: superficially pleasing, but short-lived and ultimately defective.

Now either Columbus doesn’t know how to present a song, or he doesn’t want to be redundant with his choreography. “One Song Glory,” for example, focuses on Roger’s past, rather than his present. However, we know he’s a former junkie with AIDS, we know he’s trying to leave some trace of himself behind before he goes. It’s overkill to flashback to his late girlfriend and just poor taste to cinematically stretch the fatefulness of that one infected needle. It’s not a terrible scene, nor is it a terrible movie, but neither is it Rent.

The movie is filled with other such liberal “adaptations.” For instance, the film begins not in the apartment nor with “Rent,” but with “Seasons of Love,” the Act II opener.

It may be the catchy anthem of Rent (“five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes”), but it doesn’t work here. As filmed, each actor stands onstage, in an empty theater, illuminated by a spotlight. It’s an artistic choice, visually simple, but completely unrelated to the film itself: more a confusing prologue than an introduction. Just one more thing Columbus has forgone to make his movie, along with the addition of cold dialogue (the musical was originally entirely in song, just like a real opera). The songs once seemed natural; now they seem forced, and former showstoppers like “La Vie Boheme” are all show, no substance.

It’s not all disconnect though: some parts of the film look good. Whenever the movie settles on the budding romance between Roger and Mimi, the natural chemistry picks up the pace more than any fancy camerawork. Chris Columbus should know - just by watching his own work - that Rent looks better on a smaller scale, but perhaps he’s following the unwritten rule of Hollywood that “better” must be “bigger.” How else to explain the dream sequence of “Tango: Maureen” or the scene changes of “Take Me or Leave Me”? Why else would he exaggerate Avenue A, circa 1989, unless trying to nail home a point that artists must all be starving and living in slums?

The fact is that Rent needs no emphasis, no gilding, and no fancy bells-and-whistles. That Columbus has so adorned it with spectacle speaks not only to a major fault of Hollywood but to his own misinterpretation of the material. The finished product, despite visual flaws, can still be construed as entertainment, but only so far as George W. can be construed as a good president: The foundation is so strong; How can anyone completely fuck it up?

Aaron Riccio is a critic based in NYC.

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