Best Rent Parody Evar.
Nov. 26th, 2005 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiIt's called Rent, and is directed by Chris Columbus. It claims to be an adaptation of the Broadway musical, but it's clearly a cleverly savage parody. Who knew that Columbus, who hasn't told a funny joke on screen since his directorial debut with Adventures in Babysitting, had it in him?
Seriously, as adaptations go, this runs the gamut from suck to blow.
As many of you know, I don't exactly consider Rent to be a perfect musical. It's a very flawed musical with a number of great songs and some choice parts. Almost like another musical that was turned into a movie a couple of years ago, Chicago (which, granted, was a better musical, but still a flawed one).
With Chicago, Rob Marshall took a flawed musical and damned near made it perfect, adjusting the pacing of the musical numbers, using the silver screen to allow for proper transitions, and throwing out and changing elements to beef up the plot and characters.
With Rent, Columbus took a flawed musical and anally thrashed it until it lost almost all elements that made it worthwhile to begin with.
Which isn't to say it completely sucks. Even Columbus can only do so much harm given a pre-written script.
The good:
The acting. Columbus made the decision to keep the original Broadway cast, or as many of them as he could, at least. In most cases, this meant he ended up with some solid performers. And even the new castmembers, like Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, and Jesse Martin, were superb. Some have noted that most of the cast members have aged a little bit too much, but it didn't overly bother me. With the exception of Anthony Rapp's Mark, none of them seemed too old (and, honestly, only Mark has ever struck me as a character whose Bohemian lifestyle seemed pretentious -- the others all seem to have reasons for being where they are).
Idina Menzel. Even with a stellar cast, she stood out and stole every scene she was in. If this movie wins one Oscar, it should be best supporting actress for Menzel.
The choice to turn some of the dumber sung dialog from the musical into good old-fashioned spoken dialogue. Columbus may actually suck at directing dialogue, but at least he recognized that going 100% opera was one of the play's biggest faults.
The bad:
Roger. In the musical, his background was as a drugged-up rocker who walked in to find his girlfriend dead in the bathtub, having slashed her wrists and left him a note saying, "darling, we have AIDS." That's the sort of thing that can explain why someone's an asshole without making you hate them. In the movie, he and his girlfriend found out about the AIDS together (in a flashback montage!), and, presumably, had all sorts of touching letting-go moments before she died. Which means that, since he had some pretty clear closure in his relationship with her, that there was no excuse for his mishandling the relationship with Mimi.
Adam Pascal. It doesn't help that the one bad actor in the movie was the guy who played Roger. And his hair was probably the second-worst actor around. I kept expecting it to hop off and go on a secret mission, like Shatner's hair on Robot Chicken.
The language. The word "fuck" gets used about four times in the movie, compared to about 300 times in the play. The latter was a hell of a lot more realistic.
The homeless. For a play that's supposed to be largely about them, they managed to vanish throughout most of the movie. All of the "Christmas Bells are Ringing" songs were cut.
The setting. For a movie set in New York, this felt about as East Coast as Rumble in the Bronx. I suspect it shares as many scenes filmed on location.
The pacing. Rent, the play, was fatally flawed by its pacing, in which almost every good song appears in the first act. Columbus caught that, but instead through off the dramatic pacing of the plot itself. Instead of half the movie being devoted to the events leading up the protest, with the second half being the year of misery that follows, we get 3/4 of the movie being the events leading up to the protest, which makes the remaining 1/4 an incredibly brutal ride (although not ineffective -- Columbus and manipulative tear-jerking go hand-in-hand).
And all the little details. Columbus thinks "subtle" is something you see at the bottom of foreign flicks, so we get massively-fleshed out meetings between characters, long explanations of why they're taking AZT, musical montages of Roger climbing Santa Fe mesas, no mention until after "La Vie Boheme" of Benny and Mimi's past relationship, and a "light my candle" scene with Mimi and Roger that is completely devoid of any of what made that scene work on stage (hey, what if she blows out the candle right in front of him?). Basically, if there's a little detail that could be changed for the worse, Columbus did it.
Now, the people who hadn't seen the musical, like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gwynraven and docorion, thought it was just fine. So if you've never seen the show, you might like the film. But if you're familiar with the potential that this show has, don't waste your money. Just hope and pray that it bombs horribly enough that Rob Marshall gets the chance to remake it in a couple of years.
Seriously, as adaptations go, this runs the gamut from suck to blow.
As many of you know, I don't exactly consider Rent to be a perfect musical. It's a very flawed musical with a number of great songs and some choice parts. Almost like another musical that was turned into a movie a couple of years ago, Chicago (which, granted, was a better musical, but still a flawed one).
With Chicago, Rob Marshall took a flawed musical and damned near made it perfect, adjusting the pacing of the musical numbers, using the silver screen to allow for proper transitions, and throwing out and changing elements to beef up the plot and characters.
With Rent, Columbus took a flawed musical and anally thrashed it until it lost almost all elements that made it worthwhile to begin with.
Which isn't to say it completely sucks. Even Columbus can only do so much harm given a pre-written script.
The good:
The acting. Columbus made the decision to keep the original Broadway cast, or as many of them as he could, at least. In most cases, this meant he ended up with some solid performers. And even the new castmembers, like Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, and Jesse Martin, were superb. Some have noted that most of the cast members have aged a little bit too much, but it didn't overly bother me. With the exception of Anthony Rapp's Mark, none of them seemed too old (and, honestly, only Mark has ever struck me as a character whose Bohemian lifestyle seemed pretentious -- the others all seem to have reasons for being where they are).
Idina Menzel. Even with a stellar cast, she stood out and stole every scene she was in. If this movie wins one Oscar, it should be best supporting actress for Menzel.
The choice to turn some of the dumber sung dialog from the musical into good old-fashioned spoken dialogue. Columbus may actually suck at directing dialogue, but at least he recognized that going 100% opera was one of the play's biggest faults.
The bad:
Roger. In the musical, his background was as a drugged-up rocker who walked in to find his girlfriend dead in the bathtub, having slashed her wrists and left him a note saying, "darling, we have AIDS." That's the sort of thing that can explain why someone's an asshole without making you hate them. In the movie, he and his girlfriend found out about the AIDS together (in a flashback montage!), and, presumably, had all sorts of touching letting-go moments before she died. Which means that, since he had some pretty clear closure in his relationship with her, that there was no excuse for his mishandling the relationship with Mimi.
Adam Pascal. It doesn't help that the one bad actor in the movie was the guy who played Roger. And his hair was probably the second-worst actor around. I kept expecting it to hop off and go on a secret mission, like Shatner's hair on Robot Chicken.
The language. The word "fuck" gets used about four times in the movie, compared to about 300 times in the play. The latter was a hell of a lot more realistic.
The homeless. For a play that's supposed to be largely about them, they managed to vanish throughout most of the movie. All of the "Christmas Bells are Ringing" songs were cut.
The setting. For a movie set in New York, this felt about as East Coast as Rumble in the Bronx. I suspect it shares as many scenes filmed on location.
The pacing. Rent, the play, was fatally flawed by its pacing, in which almost every good song appears in the first act. Columbus caught that, but instead through off the dramatic pacing of the plot itself. Instead of half the movie being devoted to the events leading up the protest, with the second half being the year of misery that follows, we get 3/4 of the movie being the events leading up to the protest, which makes the remaining 1/4 an incredibly brutal ride (although not ineffective -- Columbus and manipulative tear-jerking go hand-in-hand).
And all the little details. Columbus thinks "subtle" is something you see at the bottom of foreign flicks, so we get massively-fleshed out meetings between characters, long explanations of why they're taking AZT, musical montages of Roger climbing Santa Fe mesas, no mention until after "La Vie Boheme" of Benny and Mimi's past relationship, and a "light my candle" scene with Mimi and Roger that is completely devoid of any of what made that scene work on stage (hey, what if she blows out the candle right in front of him?). Basically, if there's a little detail that could be changed for the worse, Columbus did it.
Now, the people who hadn't seen the musical, like
gwynraven and docorion, thought it was just fine. So if you've never seen the show, you might like the film. But if you're familiar with the potential that this show has, don't waste your money. Just hope and pray that it bombs horribly enough that Rob Marshall gets the chance to remake it in a couple of years.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-26 08:09 pm (UTC)Jesse Martin was the original Collins...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-26 08:36 pm (UTC)The only part I really wish they hadn't cut was a lot of Mark's character development.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-26 08:44 pm (UTC)If it bombs horribly, they're going to stop making movie versions of Broadway musicals. It's like comic book movies ten years ago; if you want more, you're obliged to go to every single one to show that there's an audience.
And they certainly wouldn't remake it. Musicals get one shot, and Hollywood doesn't sit around wonder if Madonna was a good enough Evita or if Phantom of the Opera really needed all that ridiculous scenery; they just mark it down as "successful" or "not" and move on.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-26 08:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-26 10:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-26 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-26 10:45 pm (UTC)That said, I do disagree with the idea that we need to see all musicals. To take the comic book analogy, that doesn't tell Hollywood anything other than, "Yes, please give us shit like Elektra and Catwoman." I do see the logic in supporting films that are well done but not one's cup of tea from within a genre (i.e., even if you're a DC fanatic, catching Spider-Man).
Having not seen the stage presentation,
Date: 2005-11-26 11:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-27 12:29 am (UTC)I gotta say, although you have many valid points, I still loved the movie.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-27 12:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-27 05:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-27 06:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 01:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-28 03:38 pm (UTC)