This film captures the anger and sadness, the juice and in-the-moment optimism-for-a-day of downtown New York artists in the late 1980s.
By:Bob Brown
Giacomo Puccini would have felt right at home with the crowd in Rent, the late Jonathan Larson’s musical updating of La Boheme, where the East Village stands in for Paris. The only thing that might have made him squirm is the music itself. Sometimes inspiring, but often as flatfooted as a manifesto (depending on your politics), the songs are delivered with all the fervor of a revival meeting. On the whole, they will not send you home from the theater whistling. Perhaps that’s a good thing. Unlike many of the musicals that come and go, which are ultra-hummable and undifferentiated, the tunes won’t run over and over in your brain like a virus. What will run through you is the electrical energy of the characters.
Considering how it came about, the surprise is just how big Rent has become. It is one of Broadway’s biggest hits. This irony would not have been lost on Larson, who conceived it more as a downtown antidote to Broadway musicals, a sort of Anti-Oklahoma. It has all the anger and sadness, the juice and in-the-moment optimism-for-a-day of downtown artists in the late 1980s. Their scourge was not tuberculosis, but AIDS. Their weakness was not absinthe but heroin.
The story of how Larson did not live to see his success, having died of an aneurysm before opening night, is theater legend. In all, Rent won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Obie Award, the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Not bad for a young man of 35.
Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) directed this film version, from Steve Chbosky’s screenplay. It features many of the same lead actors who created their roles on stage. Mark (Anthony Rapp) is an aspiring filmmaker living rent-free in a loft with musician Roger (Adam Pascal), a recovering addict who is HIV positive. Their circle of friends includes computer wizard Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin) and his new lover, the drag queen Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), both of whom are in an AIDS support group.
Mark’s ex-girlfriend, Maureen (Idina Menzel), is a Laurie Anderson-style performance artist who has left him for a lawyer, Joanne (Tracy Thoms). But Maureen still needs Mark’s technical skill to help her mount a tech-heavy show that includes a bank of speakers and TV monitors. The gang is all pushing Roger into the arms of his downstairs neighbor, the pole-dancer Mimi (Rosario Dawson), who has a needle habit he tries to help her break.
The drama centers on the group’s opposition to one of their former number, the now-successful Ben Coffin III (Taye Diggs), who has married into ownership of the building where Mark and Roger live. Benny is threatening to push them out so he can develop the space as a cyber center. The 525,600 minutes, the year from Christmas to Christmas, make up the arc of the story, which follows everyone’s struggle to find love and make an indelible mark on the world before, all too quickly, they fade away.
It’s easy to see why the show has bowled audiences over. The characters are so strongly drawn, it’s hard not to empathize with their plight, regardless of what you may think of their lifestyles and their choices. Some of the songs and dance numbers are show-stoppers. The medium of film allows the scenery to open up in a way it couldn’t have on a stage. Especially memorable is the tango duet in a warehouse between Mark and rival Joanne. Mark falls on his head and is knocked into a dream state with dozens of smartly dressed tangoists weaving in and out of menage-a-trois partnerings. Another humorous tuneful duel is between Maureen and Joanne, who burst into a jealous quarrel in the walnut-paneled billiard room of the club where their union has just been "blessed." The spat snakes through the entire mansion and up a winding staircase.
Like an opera, the music is nearly constant with only a bit of connective dialog binding things together. Not all the music is gripping, and some numbers seem earnest to the point of preachiness. Still, one must remember that Larson lived life on the edge just like his characters. Mark is the closest thing to his alter-ego in the show.
In the end, time and rents have passed these characters by. Who runs around recording things on 16 mm film anymore? Every kid with a camera is digital. The East Village is no longer the cheap artists’ haven it once was. Even the lofts in Soho are beyond reach of those who would starve for their art. Although Rent’s lease is still running on the Great White Way nearly 10 years on, this film is already a fervent nostalgia trip to a time not so long ago when dreams were cheap and life’s nectar was savored minute to minute.
Rated PG-13. Contains mature thematic material involving drugs and sexuality, and some strong language.

