Past due?
Revisiting Rent's bohemian rhapsody.

By Cheryl Eddy

Sure, Moulin Rouge! and Chicago had everyone declaring the return of the movie-musical. Now more than ever, the Broadway-cinema continuum, which runs both ways (see also: Hairspray and the hall of mirrors that is The Producers), is a highly lucrative alliance. So why does Chris Columbus's big-screen version of Rent - a slickly directed, energetically acted operation - feel kind of unnecessary right about now?

For one thing, it's dated. The play's vision of Manhattan, circa 1990, no longer exists, necessitating a stunt double - San Francisco's own Lower East Side (i.e., Sixth Street) - for certain exteriors, as well as special effects to re-create the Twin Towers. The sprawling loft at the center of the story looks more art-directed than authentically trashy - not that being authentic is paramount in the make-believe world of musicals, but the gritty Rent amplifies real-life urgency more than most. Story fodder includes urban poverty, smack addiction, and heartfelt romances (girl-boy, boy-boy, girl-girl) worthy of being memorialized in song, as well as AIDS, which looms like a premillennial doomsday device over multiple characters.

The infected are Roger (Adam Pascal), Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin), Angel (Tony-winner Wilson Jermaine Heredia), and Mimi (Rosario Dawson) - a quartet that molds into a pair of couples that try to "forget regret" even as illness takes over. There's no such ticking clock over the heads of filmmaker Mark (Anthony Rapp), performance artist Maureen (Idina Menzel), or lawyer Joanne (Tracie Thoms) - except the one counted down by Benny (Taye Diggs), the landlord's emissary who constantly demands payment from our proud, penniless heroes. These conflicts aside, Rent's biggest tragedy is a behind-the-scenes one: Creator Jonathan Larson famously died of an aortic aneurysm before the play hit Broadway, found enormous popular and critical success, and won a slew of awards, including four Tonys and a Pulitzer.

If Larson had lived to see Rent flourish, it's possible the big-screen version might have been a little different; as it is now, it's an exceptionally faithful interpretation. It doesn't do what Chicago did, reimagining and stylizing the source material for the big screen. Rent the movie also features most of the same actors who appeared in the 1996 stage production. They too are a little dated, if well preserved; new face Dawson (question: hired because the original actor was unavailable or for some more commercial reason?) is the only true youngster in the bunch. Loyalty to the original cast is admirable, but it's maybe not the most interesting choice Columbus could have made; after all, half the fun of Chicago was seeing genuine movie stars singin' and dancin.'

However, there's an upside to Rent keeping it real, beyond just pleasing "Rentheads" near and far. Unlike, say, last year's Phantom of the Opera (admit it, you've already forgotten there was a Phantom movie), Rent's adherence to the Broadway cast insures that Larson's songs will be interpreted with faithful, I-wuz-there-at-the-beginning passion. Supreme theme "Seasons of Love" gets multiple renditions here, and the vocals - recorded with 21st-century clarity at Skywalker Sound - have probably never sounded so resounding. All of the stars get at least one big number; the saucy argument that leads to Maureen and Joanne's breakup (at their engagement party, no less) is a highlight, as is "La Vie Boheme," a free-for-all ode to the boho lifestyle that tips its cap to Larson's operatic source material.

As the story moves into the scarier territory of funerals, corporate jobs, and - gasp! - seeking fulfillment outside of New York City, the characters' pursuit of happiness and artistic integrity while "living in America at the end of the millennium" becomes more fragmented. The getting-the-gang-back-together scene manages to be as hokey as the similar scene in Grease (cue John Travolta in a varsity sweater) - and Rent's involves a nearly dead junkie and weepy words of devotion. In a Broadway theater, perhaps, an audience member might feel connected enough to the real people onstage to share this would-be transcendent moment - but it's harder to get touchy-feely when there's a giant movie screen in the way. In its final scenes, Rent the movie's biggest problem becomes wholly apparent: It's a work too stuck on the importance of being earnest - being earnest about Rent, that is.

'Rent' opens Wed/23 at Bay Area theaters. See Movie Clock, in Film listings, for showtimes.