There is something inherently silly about most musicals, and it isn't the costumes, the sets, or even the dancing. It's the fact that I am supposed to believe that all of the characters are A) musically inclined, and B) feel the need to constantly weave in and out of song - songs which they all have apparently practiced, since everyone already knows the words and tunes. I can buy into this pretty easily when the characters are african animals (The Lion King), oversized cats (CATS), or even Puerto Ricans (West Side Story). But when I'm supposed to believe that a bunch of New Yorkers with AIDS spend their days singing songs about not being able to find inspiration or meaning in life, I wonder if maybe they shouldn't spend a little less time singing and a little more time filling out job applications.
On the stage (I've seen productions in New York and L.A.) RENT didn't really bother me. Stage productions call for a much more liberal suspension of disbelief, and audiences are usually happy to oblige. In fact, if this film had not added awkward and poorly written dialogue ("Life support is a group for people with AIDS. People like me."), and beeen completely musical like the stage show, it would have worked better. Film adaptations of plays like Fiddler On the Roof and Jesus Christ Superstar (both superbly brought to the screen by Norman Jewison, Fiddler garnering three Oscars and eight nominations) added no clunky dialogue and seemed much more coherent than this film.
RENT centers around two roomates (Mark and Roger, played by Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal) and their friends, who all either live or hang out in a very dilapidated part of New York. Most of them don't have any money, but that's okay, because their passive-agressive landlord, Benny (Taye Diggs) is too busy either padlocking the door to their apartment, stealing their furniture, or having sex with their girlfriends to collect any rent. Mark and Roger have a friend named Tom Collins (but don't drink him, you'll get AIDS!) who apparently is smart enough to rewire ATMs to give him unlimited cash, but still lives in the ghetto. His boyfriend/girlfriend is a drag queen named Angel who drums on buckets for a living and generally tries to make everyone happy. Maureen used to date Mark, but her tastes quickly shifted from Jewish male to Black female, so she's now dating Joanne, a lesbian lawyer from uptown. I almost forget Mimi (Rosario Dawson). She lives below Mark and Roger and alternates between dating Roger, sleeping with Benny, and doing lots of heroine. Oh, and most of these people have AIDS.
Are you confused yet?
Don't worry, about the time one of the characters is dead, another one's dying and a year has gone by without anyone really going anywhere (except for Roger, who goes to Santa Fe and ends up standing on top of a mountain in a shot that looks so goofy I almost laughed out loud in the theatre) you might begin to understand. It's a movie about friendship. In the end, everyone is happy, which I guess is nice - except no one has a job, and - oh wait, that's right - more than half of them still have AIDS.
The Bottom Line: This show just doesn't seem right for the big screen. In the confinements of the stage it works on a certain level, pulling the audience into a tiny New York apartment and showing them the lives of a group of doomed 20-something year olds trying to find meaning and happiness in their lives and relationships. In the movie, New York seems like a different planet, the actors are all in their mid-thirties, and the characters seem too caught up in their singing to fully appreciate reality.
Musicals are escapist works at best. Most don't attempt to be too realistic, because they know better. RENT is an example of a musical that doesn't quite know what it wants to be. It asks to be treated as a testament to reality, but falls a good bit short. Rosario Dawson, the youngest actor in the cast, steals every scene she's in - but it's still not enough. When we're five minutes into the movie, and characters are lighting trashcan fires in their apartments because the power is out and they're cold - and then thirty seconds later they're throwing the trashcans into the street just for kicks, I'm getting up to re-soak my popcorn in some of that delicious butter-inspired-liquid-topping.
RENT is fine if you're just looking for a mildly entertaining afternoon at the movies, but if you want to see a musical about the bohemian life that truly soars, rent a copy of Moulin Rouge.
The Verdicts:
MUSIC: B+
MOVIE: C+
AIDS: A-