Broadway to Big Screen: 'Rent' is a Smash Hit

 Ray Buffington, editor-in-chief

Going to watch a show on Broadway when you are in New York is like wrapping a tourniquet around a blood-spewing wound. You have to do it or you will die.

Unfortunately, not everyone can afford that rather expensive plane ticket to get to the Big Apple, creating a mass of unhappy, show-tune singing, musical-hungry, Broadway-dreaming hopefuls. The solution to this wish-shattering situation? Bring Broadway to the big screen.

Transferring popular Broadway hit scripts and stage performances to fruitful and powerful movie production companies has been a slowly, barely used idea throughout the years, but has been increasing in popularity of late due to the demand of easy-access entertainment.

The latest of these stage-show-to-movie-morphers was Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning “Rent”.

“Rent” is about a group of eight friends living in New York’s East Village, ranging from a love-scorned film maker to a up-beat, talented transvestite, who all have dreams of becoming artists based on their various talents. Each character is faced with his or her own personal problems, however, such as being HIV positive, loving someone else who already has a significant other or is dating an ex-lover, drug addictions, and the namesake of the broadway show, making rent. Each character deals with their inner demons with song and their friends.

Not a show for the light-hearted, or those who choose to stay ignorant, “Rent” embraces the reality of drug usage and AIDs, showing that there is a lot of both going on in the world and that they have consequences for the person who indulges in either of them, not to mention for that person’s friends as well.

During its peak time, and still currently, “Rent” had blown away audience upon audience with its original story line and lyrics, breaking the mold of what was “normal” in a Broadway production. It quickly gathered an entourage of “Rent-heads,” the people who know every word of every line of the musical and show their love for it with bumper stickers and tattoos, becoming one of the most popular Broadway musicals to perform.

When the idea for “Rent” to takes its chance on the big screen was released, tepid feelings from its supporters was received.

Many Rent-heads who had not seen the musical but had the soundtrack, and still knew every word, were excited that they would finally be able to see something they had been dreaming about for so long.

Some didn’t want their treasured Broadway smash ripped away from the stage, then cut, trimmed, and regurgitated back onto the movie screen, a monster that had once resembled something they had loved.

Regardless of what the fans thought, the movie producers went through with their idea and created a movie-version of “Rent.”

Being a Rent-head, myself, I have to admit I was a little anxious to see what the movie had to provide. Before seeing the film, I was more concerned with them cutting out my favorite songs and scenes, which stage show-to-movie screen productions tend to do, rather than who they had cast to play my favorite characters. Luckily, they had cast all but two of the original actors for the original production of “Rent.” Each song had such important meaning, and I couldn’t see how the story would flow if one were to be missing.

After I saw the film, I felt content overall. The actors did a fantastic job. Of course, the songs were amazing, even though there were a few missing the storyline was affected very little, and the cinematography was excellent.

I had my reserves about Rosario Dawson playing Mimi, the out-going, strip-club dancing, drug addict, but she did wonderfully with her acting and her singing.

Nothing that was different seriously agitated me. I was kind of annoyed that in the beginning and end of a few of the songs, the lyrics were spoken rather than sang. Also,  the answering machine messages were spoken and not sang, a rather fun part of the stage production of “Rent” (Rent-heads will know what I am talking about).  But those were small, acceptable things that could have been a lot worse.

All in all, the movie version of “Rent” definitely gets my approval for a “go-see” type of movie. A definite five out of five stars. It gives the audience a little different taste of what the world looks like from a  starving artist’s eyes, as well as a big dose of the reality of AIDs and its effects on not just those who are infected, but those around them.

Take a break from the usual super-action-packed or super-tear-jerker types of films and try on something else for size. “Rent” will either make you aghastingly livid or goose-bumpingly cheerful, but at least it will bring some kind of emotion out of you. Just remember – “La vie Boheme”!