08.04.07
RENT
If you were once a middle school-aged girl, like I was, there are probably a few things you were *really* into back then that you are a little embarrassed about now. For me, one of those things is RENT. Naturally, since I knew the libretto by heart and saw the touring company more than once, I wanted to see the movie. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), everyone I knew at the time it came out had their wits about them and refused to go to the theatre with me. So I just finally saw it on DVD. It was awful for so many reasons.
First, now that I am much older - and hopefully wiser - the whole story has become horribly lame. Yes, everyone has AIDS and I guess it’s sad and they’re all artists who have no money. Artists? Really? The documentary that Mark (Anthony Rapp) screens at the end just looks like a bunch of random scenes strung together. He had to quit a paying job to make that? I could have made that the night before it was due and still gotten a B+. Actually, that’s exactly what I would have done if I had taken a film class wherein the goal was to make a Shitty Self-Indulgent Documentary. The songs that Roger (an oh-so-feather-haired Adam Pascal) writes are nauseatingly corny. The ‘performance piece’ that Maureen (Idina Menzel) puts on that ends up inciting a riot is so hackneyed that not would it not start a homeless riot in New York City - it probably would have barely woken the homeless up. The bottom line is that these ‘artists’ SUCK AT ART. But refuse to get or keep real jobs so they’re poor but it’s kind of OK because they live in this magical loft (which is way bigger and nicer than my apartment in Hollywood…I wonder if they allow pets…) where they don’t have to pay rent. Nay, where they refuse to pay rent and think they are actually justified in this refusal, because their landlord and ex-friend Benny (OMG, Taye Diggs is so sexy) should care about their art and let it slide. WTF? You don’t get to live for free just because you are a terrible lazy artist who doesn’t want to get a real job and you probably have AIDS. So, the whole premise of this movie just sucks. And this doesn’t even take into account the lameness of random bursting into song that comes with all musicals.
But even if you can get past all of that because maybe you were even more into RENT that I was in [year] (I had merch from the shot, that’s all I will say), it’s also not well done. They say at the beginning that it’s supposed to be 1989. Only something about the costumes and productions design seems so forced that it doesn’t look like 1989 at all. Instead, it looks like 2005 trying to look like 1989 and the whole thing reeks of a high school musical. I could almost see Anthony Rapp backstage rummaging through some prop bin for his glasses and the cast sitting down for ‘jazz hands‘ lessons.
The best part of the movie is watching Rosario Dawson dance around in her panties (though, admittedly, she is not a very good dancer [or a very good singer for that matter]) and then fantasizing about her and Taye Diggs fucking, which it is implied they did.
Perhaps the rest of the cast that originated their roles on Broadway (like Menzel, Rapp and Pascal) are really good on the stage. I never once bought Pascal as Roger. Because of my vast RENT knowledge, I know that he was actually in a band when he was cast in this part and was not an actor. No kidding! He’s a terrible actor. Roger is supposed to be sick (with AIDS, of course!), tortured over his ex-girlfriend’s suicide and generally melancholy. But Pascal just seems completely dazed and numb through the whole thing.
Pascal was certainly a weak point, but the rest of the cast wasn’t much better and I could never buy into their lives because everything around them seemed so clean and brightly colored and perfectly chosen.
So, no surprise to most people, but this movie sucked. Please don’t see it. Hey, but remember Anthony Rapp in Adventures in Babysitting? That’s a good movie! So is School of Rock, where Adam Pascal plays a musician and is in the movie *very little* (which is just the right amount so as to not betray that he is talentless!) I think I had a dream about Jack Black last night. Yes, definitely see School of Rock and not RENT.