Rent (2005)

RENT opens full throttle with the cast loudly singing to show us that they are intensely angry about something, though just what they are angry about or why they feel compelled to put it into song is never made clear. Indeed, as the film meanders along for over two hours, it never really goes anywhere beyond the usual contrived plot complications about lovers breaking up and getting back together.

It is obviously going for a slice-of-life quality, trying to recreate a time and a place, in this case AIDS-era New York, circa 1990. The multi-award winning play is based on Puccini's opera "La Boheme," but the film rather apparently seeks inspiration from the screen version of HAIR. Like HAIR, RENT features a rambling plot that only provides an excuse for the songs; but unlike Milos Foreman's underrated classic, RENT is saddled with rather mundane music and cursed with lackluster staging. Tony awards and a Pulitzer prize notwithstanding, RENT drones from one barely memorable song to the next, trying to be soulfully operatic but revealing its greatest weakness: it's faux operetta can't conceal that it is an utterly trivial story about utterly trivial people.

HAIR has the added advantage of being about an era with distinction; the late 1960s were utterly unique in style, attitude and relevancy. Other than taking place at the heart of the AIDS epidemic, there really isn't anything that lends distinction to the milieu that RENT desperately tries to document; 1990 being not that much different from, say, 1975, or for that matter 2005. RENT has the sort of timeless banality that is purposely built into TV sitcoms so that they can play eternally in reruns; if the dialogue didn't mention what year it takes place, it would be difficult to tell. It is certainly difficult to care.

The cast repeatedly breaks into one song or another that pointedly celebrates nonconformity, as if such a thing was a unique and original concept. Unfortunately, so much of what the film embraces as being bohemian, seems less shockingly radical than just plain shallow and trendy. What is set forth as originality comes off as cliché, warmed over beatnik and/or hippie counterculture posturing. Rather than being universal in nature, the film's call for freethinking seems strangely generic. If anything, RENT seems geared to do little more than to romanticize poverty and failure.

A good example is the character of Mark Cohen, a wannabe filmmaker played by Anthony Rapp. Mark is cursed with a caring, middle-class family and is obviously slumming; the great tragedy he suffers during the course of the story is that he lands a high paying job with a future. Throughout the movie, he is constantly filming some sort of vague documentary about his own life, which prompts him to prattle on about his artistic integrity. To this end he utilizes an old-fashioned, hand-cranked camera, eschewing opportunities to use state-of-the-art equipment, let alone get money to finance his project. The resulting film proves to be little more than an amateurish home movie. He is not an artist; he's a kid playing with a toy. RENT is an ambitious effort about people without ambition, merely kids at play.

The roles are tailor-made to safely conform to PC standards of diversity; a carefully balanced quota of blacks, whites, Jews, Latinos, straights, gays, AIDS sufferers, addicts, "yuppie scum" and the now almost mandatory free spirit cross-dresser. But it is the type of diversity that is only skin deep; none

Fmovies: "Rent" is an excellent adaptation of the stage musical. It is handsomely filmed and very well acted. The movie version takes the story out into city's real locations.

Most of this movie is singing, but it is so well done it never breaks the 'suspension of disbelief' that as an audience we grant the fiction we are watching.

This 'rock operetta' is about a group loft-dwelling 'Bohemian' New Yorkers, some of whom have AIDS. The stage version has a devoted following of 'Rentheads' including director Chris Columbus, for whom this film was a labor of love.

I saw it with several young people and they really connected with the story's message of friendship, tolerance and living every day to the fullest. Some elderly members of the audience thought the music was being played too loud and they couldn't identify with the lifestyle depicted in the story.

This movie could attain the cult status of the stage musical.

I thought it was great. I am a huge fan of the stage version but i felt very much the same in watching the movie. i did miss certain favorite moments that had been removed but i feel like the movie worked completely! i wish i could own it already! I felt like Jesse L. Martin and Adam Pascal were amazing to watch. I love everyone but those two really stood out to me. the bursting out into song was not awkward at all and the whole feel of the move over all just really worked. I feel like Christopher Columbus really stayed true to the overall feel and really stayed true to the fans. I was glad to be so moved by a movie. I cant wait to hear more response from fans....new or old.

Rent fmovies. this movie made me cry. out of joy and sadness combined. the music makes me want to sing and love. the music heals. the story inspires. the music heals. i'm glad musicals are still made. :-) wow. that's really all i can say. beautiful. exquisite. gorgeous. bountiful. soulful. well-edited. and unbelievably acted. and unbelievably directed. with unbelievably beautiful cinematography. and choreography that knocks your socks off. i loved this movie. it's wonderful, and heartening, that in a world and nation so full of hate art can be produced such as RENT! that reminds, affirms, validates, expresses, navigates, investigates, perpetuates, stimulates, fumigates, explicates, redirects, and instigates nothing other than love. and enjoying the moment. and not holding onto the past. timeless lessons. timeless music. Oscar gold written all over this.

I saw 'Rent' at a screening on Nov.12. I had seen the stage version both in NYC with the original cast as well as in LA with a different cast. The music and story has been echoing in my head for the past 10 years. So I was bound to be critical, but determined to be open-minded as this was going to be a film, not a stage musical. Chris Columbus did a wonderful job in preserving the message and feelings Jonathan Larson I think wanted people to take away with them. The changes made to bring this story to the screen were artfully accomplished. The film is gritty and sad and has a feeling of hopelessness that was difficult to transmit in a stage venue. The music that made it into the film is spectacular, and the soundtrack is indeed better than the OBC recording. The loss of several songs, though at first disappointing, works in the context of the movie. I hope all you fellow 'Rentheads' give this film the chance it deserves. I will be in the theater on opening day next week to see it again for sure.

It's obvious this musical has an incredible fan base. That became evident when we saw the movie version the other day. There were a lot of young people in groups that came to see what director Chris Columbus did to the musical that is still running on Broadway after nine years. The screen adaptation is by Steve Chbosky.

"Rent", written and composed by Jonathan Larson, started as a small musical at the NY Theater Workshop and then was transferred to the Nederlander theater where it's still playing. The film has six of the original cast members in it, the exception being Freddie Walker who is substituted by Tracie Thoms and Daphne Rubin-Vega who was the original Mimi, a role that went to Rosario Dawson in the film.

This movie will definitely resonate with a younger audience. The music is targeted to them. This is a pop-rock opera and make no mistake about it. Don't go thinking you are going to find anything resembling Puccini's "La Boheme". The musical is extremely loosely based on the characters from the opera, but that's where all the comparison ends. The people one sees in the musical are more real because the pain of what is going on in their lives is clearly evident. The AIDS epidemic affects a few of the characters; there are gays and lesbians just being themselves without anyone judging what they do. At the bottom of it all is every day survival in that environment.

What "Rent" is, it's a celebration of the life on that side of New York during the 80's when anarchists populated the lower east side of Manhattan squatting in abandoned buildings and living precariously at the edge of a society that didn't want them around. The young people that were attracted to the area brought with them a new way of living without prejudice.

Alas, everything comes to an end. In fact, just a tour of the area today will show the gentrification that is taking place after Mayor Giuliani and his ilk got these bohemians evicted in order to give way to condominiums and new luxury dwellings where the people the movie celebrate will have no chance to live in them at all. This seems to be the problem when artists create spaces that later on are taken over by the establishment, only to displace the creators, as has happened in Soho, Dumbo, and will not be too far behind in displacing the Williamsburg's artistic settlers.

As a film, "Rent", has great moments. Even though one has heard the songs many times, there is still a fresh take on them by the talented cast that sing them. Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Wilson Jermaine-Heredia, Jesse Martin, Taye Diggs, Idina Menzel, Tracie Thoms and Rosario Dawson work as an ensemble under the direction of Mr. Columbus, who would have appeared as an unlikely candidate for directing the film, but who brings the best from his talented cast.

By the way, "Rent" was filmed in the west coast, so don't go looking for any authentic East Village locations, since most of what one sees was probably shot in a studio. The Horseshoe bar is shown on the outside, and a scene of Tompkins Square Park, but the rest is fake.