Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a rewatch.
The Flawed: Rent
We know, we know: the long-delayed movie adaptation of Rent sure as heck ain’t perfect. Director Chris Columbus doesn’t quite know how to stage the musical sequences so as not to feel like an overlong music video. The movie is somehow less gritty and stark than the stage version when it comes to depicting sex, drug addiction, poverty, and the pain of HIV/AIDS. Though set in New York, the scenery lacks an authentic flavor since it was shot on a backlot on the West Coast. Certain songs and plot points that worked better on stage with a live audience feel awkward and forced on film.
And yet…and yet…even in a bowdlerized, awkward cinematic incarnation, Rent still has power. Jonathan Larsen’s rock score takes on a new fury thanks to music arranger Rob Cavallo, the producer of Green Day’s album American Idiot. The cast, most of whom created their roles on stage, embody their characters with depth and complexity; new additions Tracie Thoms and Rosario Dawson both earn their place alongside the originals. And the story, of course–an adaptation of La Boheme with AIDS substituting for tuberculosis–is as moving now as it was when the show debuted in 1996. With another pandemic ravaging the nation, critics who decried the film’s depiction of the AIDS crisis as dated nonsense seem more cynical and out of touch now than when the movie debuted in 2005.
Rent isn’t a great movie, and your mileage may vary when it comes to enjoying what the film gets right as opposed to its glaring flaws. That said, we still find a lot to enjoy in its music, story and performances, enough so that we can’t write it off as an epic disaster (see also: Cats). With the White House response to COVID-19 in 2020 disturbingly close to its response to AIDS in 1982, Rent can offer a bit of perspective, and maybe a bit of hope too.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Cam
My problem with the movie is that, in spite of how cool it was for the director to hire the original cast, it was supposed to be a movie about people from 16 to their very early 20’s. Seeing a bunch of 40 year old’s play it threw me off because seeing a 19 year old being unsure of what to do, overly confused about life, flighty etc. was fine, seeing it in a 40 year old was a totally different thing. Too bad they didn’t film it when the cast first originated the roles.
ronniebs
I so agree with you. It’s hard to hide age in film. I did like the songs & some of the musical numbers.
Donston
It’s a fairly terrible movie for far more reasons than the article suggest.
Kangol2
So glad I got to see the stage version several times. The movie is a deeply flawed translation from stage musical to film, but I could see it attracting younger viewers the same way a flawed movie like Grease, which has 30-years playing teenagers, has drawn new generations of fans. (And I did and do like Grease.) I find one of the people mentioned in the article above unbearable to watch on screen, though, so I usually pass on this version. I’ll leave it at that.
Bonus: If you want to learn about the controversy over how Rent came to be and whether it was essentially stolen from another writer’s work, check out Sarah Schulman’s riveting book Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America. You can probably find it in the library or an inexpensive copy online too.
Blue Zoo
I was never a big Rent fan, but if I’m going to watch it, I prefer the taped Broadway version they did just before the show closed (2008?). I even liked the live version they did for TV better than the movie. The movie fell really flat for me.
Gadfeal
Is that Anthony Rapp (now in Star Trek Discovery) to the right of Roasario Dawson?
wjhboy73
Yes. He originated the role on Broadway.
Jackrabbit
Sorry, I never saw the original stage play and for me the Movie was AWESOME and I’ve seen it like a dozen times. Moan all you want, It’s great!
Imjustsaying
I liked it at first watch because I wanted to. I saw the original cast seven times and loved every second. But on second viewing it proved it wasn’t close to the show. Except for one scene shot outside in daylight do you ever get the sense they are in New York City. San Francisco the actual location can’t stand in for NY. And Chris Columbus had no reason or right to change a completely sung thru musical and change it to a conventional one. That was a fatal mistake.
inbama
The fatal mistake was taking a beautiful Puccini opera and dumping the music.
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
The only theatrical play made into a movie I’ve seen in recent memory that was worth its weight in gold was Hairspray. Hairspray the movie had two theatrical releases twenty years apart and both were spectacular. I was hoping for a third movie version but had to settle for NBC’s airing of it back in 2017. John Walters has had to have made over $100 million dollars on Hairspray.
As for Rent, I put it in the same category as Cats in both stage and movie versions. Enough said.
Kangol2
I agree with you about Hairspray, though I’d say the second version was very good but it doesn’t come close to John Waters’ original, which is one of the funniest, most trenchant comedies to come along in decades. He manages to combine a rich social portrait of an era with political critique that feels effortless and comical all the way through, and even gives viewers an important history lesson (tidied up, but nevertheless) about segregation and integration, and the power of cross-racial solidarity, without it ever becoming heavy-handed. And let’s not forget the stellar acting by everyone, particularly Divine, Ricky Lake, Mink Stole, Deborah Harry, Sonny Bono, and Ruth Brown, the dancing, the songs, all of it. It’s one of his masterpieces.
Sister Bertha Bedderthanyu
The second one with Queen Latifah and John Travolta had more vibrant songs that did keep with the period but unfortunately it was the casting of the teenagers around Tracy that ruined it. Not a single one of them looked like a teenager regardless of how good the song was. Remember Queen Latifah with Big, Blonde and Beautiful with her chest all poked out while she danced? Those look like adults around her as does the number Miss Baltimore Crab and the white teenagers. There are too many teen actors out there for a casting director to have to resort to adults to play teens.
Cam
I also thought they did a great job with Dreamgirls which came out around the same time as the new Hairspray, and Chicago wasn’t bad, but not as good as Hairspray and Dreamgirls.
Kangol2
@Cam, I agree with you about Dreamgirls. Jennifer Hudson is the linchpin in making that movie so successful, but all the performers were great, including Eddie Murphy, and Beyoncé brought the glamor. I do wish they’d filmed the original cast too, though. I really liked the film version of Chicago but even it didn’t compare to the stage versions I saw with Bebe Neuwirth and, when she did her second (third? fourth? 1000th?) run, Ann Reinking, who was incredible. (To see a 40-/50-something actor or actress move like that is marvelous.)
@Bertha, I agree about the second version’s music, but that first version is so subversively funny and was groundbreaking for its time. Also, there are so many quotable lines in it, and the hilarity with which Waters sends up racism and prejudice (“Excuse me, Miss White Lady”….) would be hard to find or replicate in most mainstream Hollywood movies today.
Cam
@Kangol2
I loved both versions of Hairspray, but they were very different. The first was so subversive, and really stuck a finger in the eye of normalcy, even to the point of having Divine play the Edna role, and the blatant discussions between Sonny Bono and Debbie Harry talking about not integrating tilted acres.
And the new version was pure broadway musical extravaganza. I heard John Waters said he would only ok it being put on the stage if they changed it. He said the movie was already great, so do something different for the stage play. Very cool.
It’s Madison time Hit it!
David Reddish
I would add here that contrary to popular belief, with the exception of Mimi who is specified as 19, the characters are not meant to be teenagers. Joann, for example, is a practicing lawyer. Can’t name too many teen attorneys.
The ages of the characters are never specified. Based on Larsen’s original casting notes, they’re all supposed to be in their 20s and 30s.
AxelDC
It’s because they have such adolescent attitudes towards life, careers, and what the world owes them.
Cam
I think the estimate is…
Mark Cohen:24
Roger Davis:26
Tom Collins:28
Benjamin Coffin III:27
Angel Dumott Schunard:23
Mimi Marquez:19
Joanne Jefferson:26
Maureen Johnson:25
YourDad
Only one shot in this preview of the character of Angel removing her wig. Aside from that, the entire preview shows men and women hugging and kissing. If you were unfamiliar with the story, I doubt you’d even know from this preview there was any gay storyline here at all.
AxelDC
While it was a nice gesture to include the original Broadway cast in the movie, their Bohemian lives just looked pathetic on 30-something faces. Mooching off their friend and refusing to get adult jobs may be cute for a 25 year old, but on a 35 year old it’s time grow the F up.
scolbert
I felt exactly the same way about the movie. I found myself saying over and over again “grow up, pay your rent, and get a job”. What might be acceptable if you’re a teen isn’t if your 30-40. The movie version could have just been called “Mooch”
Cam
I know! And they’re angry at their friend, who after two years of living free in his building he may not let them do that anymore.
I was thinking “How about saying “Thanks for letting us mooch for 2 years!”?
Doug
I tried to watch it but couldn’t get past the first 20 minutes.
eeebee333
Skip it and watch a production of La Boheme instead.
Jake123
I’ve sang Colline before had to hide my face in my coat at the finale so no one would see my tears!!
Preppy1000
Maybe it’s just me but I hated it on stage. However I liked the movie. It was far from perfect but it wasn’t the bomb everyone said it was. “Cats” and “A Chorus Line” were much worse.
JromeGervais09
I am biased but not against the Rent movie. I saw the original Broadway with my husband when it first opened. It was a vibrant rock musical with sweet and tragic moments. Scene changes even in the stage presentation was at times awkward, but the production numbers and solos with the fabulous lighting and sets was heart breaking. The movie music scenes were done quite well, but I had to accept that it was not live and lower my standards because live theater ads what movies will never do for musicals. Especially with smooth scene changes. There were many continuity problems with the movie that OCD theater people like me saw as a sore, but it’s a movie. So all in all, in the end I still cried at the appropriate moments and laughed too. That is the important part of the Rent movie. It still can move your emotions. Isn’t that what art is about? Pulling emotion out of the audience while telling a story. For me, since I dearly love the music, the Rent movie is always a release for me and especially now.
PoetDaddy
I have not seen the RENT movie because I hated the RENT show. I thought individual members of the cast were great, but not Anthony Rapp. I can’t stand Anthony Rapp. I thought RENT was so schlocky it was funny. I had a hard time not laughing. Also much of the show was “borrowed” from the published writing of an actual Lower East Side AIDS activist. I’m sorry that Larsen boy died, but it doesn’t make his show better. Perhaps it raised some awareness about AIDS among people who hadn’t bothered to read a newspaper for ten years, but it also raised a clothing line on sale at Bloomingdale’s. That seemed to be appropriate. Not a compliment.
Imjustsaying
‘ I heard John Waters said he would only ok it being put on the stage if they changed it. He said the movie was already great, so do something different for the stage play. Very cool.’
Actually, Waters major caveat was that Edna must always be played by a man to honor Divine.