by Jessica Del Curto
Daily Lobo
The stresses of life are so much better set to the backdrop of song and dance.
Perhaps this is why the musical "Rent" became the longest-running Broadway show after its premiere in 1996.
For much cheaper tickets, fans can now see the movie adaptation, which is as close to the real thing as you can get. Using most of the original Broadway cast, "Rent" tells the story of eight characters who have no money to pay last year's rent, this year's rent, or next year's rent. They are squatters who live in the ghettos of New York City during the late '80s, and they rely on each other heavily as they cope with AIDS, drugs and splintered relationships.
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The themes in "Rent" are not about easy living. It's a gripping look at a group of people who refuse to live in the mainstream and pay the consequences because of it.
Yet the humorous song and dance that narrates the story make it beautiful. It is a movie that allows the audience to get involved, and when the characters suffer, the audience suffers along with them.
Unlike other Broadway adaptations, "Rent" didn't hire a cast of fancy Hollywood actors to tell the story on the big screen. Although the movie version of "Chicago" was lovely, in the end it was still more of a movie than a Broadway show because RenÇe Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere are perfect in the way only Hollywood stars can be.
Broadway stars are different. They are talented, attractive, but best of all, they possess a quality of realness that make traumatic stories so much more tangible.
Rosario Dawson fits right in with the seasoned cast as Mimi, the pole dancer who struggles with an addiction to blow. She is plagued with AIDS, rendering her hopeless and reckless. Dawson sings and dances right along with the rest of them. Even better, she returns to the roots of her first - and best - film, the 1995 indie flick "Kids." She is damn good at playing a hardened street kid.
Jesse L. Martin, who plays Tom Collins, an intelligent school teacher who falls in love with a transvestite, carries the movie as a man who understands the pain involved when you give yourself to someone. His voice knows sadness, and in a particularly emotional scene in the movie, the older man behind me in the theater was sobbing. It's understandable though - it seems everyone was.
In one scene, Mimi's boyfriend Roger takes off to New Mexico. Because it's a movie, the audience gets to see him travel to the Southwest. Although it was kind of cool to see shots of downtown Santa Fe, watching the performance of "What You Own" against a backdrop of the mesa crosses the cheese factor line. It probably would have been better to stick to the original script where Roger is just assumed to be in Santa Fe.
The problem with the movie being so similar to the Broadway production is that it is not as easily accessible to everyone. If two hours of singing and dancing makes you nervous, the movie version of "Rent" isn't going to calm you. It's a whole lot of crooning and hip-shaking.
But lovers of the original won't be disappointed. "Rent" hits every note, superbly illustrating the difficult yet occasionally glamorous lifestyle of the Bohemian.
