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'Rent': Still packs emotional punch

By HAP ERSTEIN
Palm Beach Post

Ten years ago, a promising young composer-playwright named Jonathan Larson created a raw, gritty rock musical about 1980s street life in New York's East Village. Rent eventually hit Broadway, where it earned the Pulitzer Prize, multiple Tony Awards and the devotion of a generation that rarely attends the theater.

Larson's modern take on Puccini's opera La Boheme has now made the leap to the movies, with much of its original cast intact. The results, probably inevitably, are less grungy, more polished and not as authentic. For instance, it is hard to look at the mammoth loft apartment of struggling songwriter Roger (Adam Pascal) and videographer Mark (Anthony Rapp) without wondering just how much it rents for, even if they are not paying in protest.

Sony Pictures 'Rent' B The verdict: Too glossy, but still manages to paint a powerful musical portrait. 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. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Rent'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

On the other hand, director Chris Columbus (Home Alone, the first Harry Potter films) and his screenwriter Stephen Chbosky have added layers of coherence and context to the story, while keeping Larson's eclectic song score intact. The film moves briskly from production number to production number, forwarding the narrative with more clarity than the stage show ever had.

Overall, the movie of Rent, opening today, is very much a mixed bag, but this tale of romance among destitute, AIDS-infected bohemians still has quite an emotional punch as it celebrates the power of community, art and love.

An annoying gloss irks right from the beginning, though, as Columbus squanders Larson's best song, the numerical anthem Seasons of Love, with a stagy, spotlighted rendition by the ensemble in what could easily be an outtake from A Chorus Line.

Soon, however, the movie settles down, introducing such diverse characters as former professor Tom Collins (Law & Order's Jesse L. Martin), who gets mugged outside Roger and Mark's apartment, then rabbit punched by love from a drag queen named Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia). Among the things they have in common, they are both HIV-positive.

The same goes for Mimi (Rosario Dawson), Roger's downstairs neighbor, who works as a stripper at the Cat Scratch Club and provocatively comes on to him during a blackout, asking him to light her candle. Mark still pines for former girlfriend Maureen (Idina Menzel), a performance artist who left him for Joanne, a well-bred, Harvard-trained lawyer (Tracie Thoms).

Most of the movie's songs are rooted in reality, but a duet by Mark and Joanne about the woman they both love — Tango: Maureen — becomes a fantasy Argentine dance number. On the other hand, a spat between Maureen and Joanne (Take Me or Leave Me) turns more dramatic when set at an engagement announcement party thrown by Joanne's bewildered parents.

Rent spans a year in the life of this tight-knit group, including their rent strike against landlord Benny (Taye Diggs), a former pal who married his way into wealth and now wants to gentrify their rundown neighborhood. Larson spoofs performance art with Maureen's rent protest rant, complete with audience participation cow mooing. It is followed by an explosive number at a Village cafe, an anthem of their group philosophy, La Vie Boheme, with a few winking echoes of Puccini.

Using so many original cast members in the film is also ultimately a trade-off. They sing well and certainly inhabit their roles convincingly, but most look too old for their characters now. Certainly that is true of Martin, though his singing and dancing will be a revelation for most moviegoers who know him only from TV. As Mimi, Dawson is a fine addition to the group, though she hardly seems 19, as the character is specified to be.

On balance, though, this is an impressive adaptation of a show that defined a time and a generation, now made permanent on celluloid. While hardly perfect, this Rent deserves to attract an audience, if only to further cement the return of the movie musical.