The show has always been something of an inelegant narrative jumble held together by empathy for its characters. The film opens with the show’s best known song, “Seasons of Love,” which onstage kicks off the second act but here strives for emotional peaks with characters we have yet to meet.Ĭolumbus then pumps up the title song into an angry bohemian anthem, with main characters and hoards of extras railing against the insanity of modern life from their fire escapes in an Alphabet City saturated with graffiti, rubble and trashcan fires. The muscular treatment by ace music producer Rob Cavallo, best known for his work with Green Day, supplies driving power to the songs that’s rarely matched in the narrative, while Columbus’ cluttered idea of how to film a musical seems to reference “Fame” in its repeated dancing on tables and seemingly endless running through trash-strewn streets holding hands.
While “Rent” is not as obsolete as other film versions of zeitgeist-specific musicals - like “Godspell” or “Hair” - nor as leaden as last year’s “Phantom of the Opera,” it feels past its prime. The East Village, where the story’s struggling artists, squatters, junkies and misfits reside, is now considerably more gentrified AIDS treatment has evolved radically and the gloomy shadow of Reaganomics and yuppie greed that hung heavily over big-city fringe-dwellers has been replaced by more insidious sociopolitical specters. Eighth on the all-time Broadway list of long-runners at nearly 4,000 performances, “Rent” has now grossed more than $210 million from its New York engagement alone.īut the musical’s of-the-moment edge has faded.
There was the added poignancy of the tragedy of creator Larson, who died the night of final dress rehearsal, days before his 36th birthday. Premiered Off Broadway in 1996, the show connected with audiences via its melancholy romanticism and harnessing of the stark realities of AIDS, drugs, homelessness and life on the margins.
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