Rent - Austin American-Statesman movie review

'Rent': Joy and pain in vivid color

By MICHAEL BARNES
Austin American-Statesman

'Rent' pays off

One's embrace of the movie "Rent" depends, to a great extent, on one's devotion to the long-running off-Broadway, then Broadway musical.

Jonathan Larson's 1996 (loose) stage adaptation of "La Bohème" for the East Village set struck a chord with a generation not already smitten with — or necessarily conversant with — the traditional Broadway musicals that brightened the lives of their parents and grandparents.

Sony Pictures

'Rent'

4 out of 5 stars

The verdict: Suspend your disbelief and embrace a musical that isn't afraid to shout its feelings from the rooftops

Director: Chris Columbus
Starring: Idina Menzel, Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Jesse L. Martin, Taye Diggs
Run time: 135 minutes
Release date: Nov. 23, 2005
Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving drugs and sexuality, and for some strong language.
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Its story about a group of bohemian friends who make movies, spawn performance art, compose rock songs, fight AIDS and pursue other endeavors while New York rots around them excited young audiences more than the not-so-young. Larson's audacious melodies — steeled at times by rock arrangements — appealed across generations.

The true "Rent" flame was tended, during the 1990s, by "Rentheads," who lined up every night for the $20 seats reserved on the front two rows wherever it played. (Talk about a publicity stunt.) And they will likely factor heavily into making or breaking this film.

But how to translate this show to the big screen for other audiences, those still uneasy with characters who burst into orchestrated song? Use the music-video techniques employed splashily in "Moulin Rouge" or subtly in "Chicago"? Add a framing device, like last year's Cole Porter biography "De-Lovely"?

Director Chris Columbus and his team decided instead to charge ahead with a forthright transfer of the musical to the screen. Sure, they used naturalistic settings, dream sequences, spoken dialogue (instead of continuous singing) and montages. Yet if they ever worried about the over-the-top emotional frankness of the musical, there's no trace of that anxiety on the screen.

They simply made "Rent" as gorgeous as possible. The sound reproduction is like nothing before heard in movie musicals, a rich, thick, robust earful that fully magnifies Larson's tunes, and especially his glorious harmonies. The actors — mostly from the original Broadway cast, a rare casting practice in these times — glow with a healthy sheen that sometimes belies their status as drug addicts or terminally ill patients.

The nearest parallel is Milos Foreman's "Hair," another generational landmark that looked fantastic on the big screen, if it did not exactly make sense. There's even an anti-establishment table-dancing scene in "Rent" that almost exactly recalls the title song in "Hair."

In many ways, however, "Rent" is the superior film, in part because the narrative hangs together, but also because the characters develop in more authentic ways. The old friends remain an alternative family, a "tribe," over time, but this group also is torn asunder by personal differences, not political abstractions. One actually cares about them.

To a certain extent. There's another way to consider the privileged kids (no longer looking like kids 10 years after they appeared on Broadway) who populate this story, whining about paying last year's rent, indulging in personal excesses, so self-absorbed, they end the movie watching themselves — in a movie.

It's hard to take seriously the troubles of such beautiful, seemingly accomplished bohos. (One even returns from the dead, sent back through the tunnel of light by a drag queen who has achieved saintly status on the other side.)

These crucial reservations aside, "Rent" succeeds as a movie musical because it trusts its medium of expression. The pungent emotions, best aired in song and dance, are not treated ironically or coolly, they are hugged like a cherished friend who has spent too much time out in the cold. If there were any convincing proof that movie musicals have regained their composure, speaking directly to audiences who are not ashamed of their feelings, it is the rousing shout of "Rent."