Rent: Grade C

C

Rent

Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs, Wison Heredia, Jesse Martin, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Tracie Thoms. Music by Jonathan Larson

A rock n roll musical based on La Boheme, set in New York City in the 1980’s . The story is tried and true, although it slouches along slowly here. Lots of music is the headline feature, with dozens of songs. Unfortunately, with one or two exceptions I did not find them attractive. They lacked interesting rhythmic structure except for specific genres, like tango. Melody was narrow in range, very cadence-oriented, with contrivances like octave jumps for variety. Harmony was rare – lots of unison singing. Lyrics were uniformly sentimental, if not maudlin. These are all the reasons I do not care much for pop music anyway, so maybe it’s just me. It was a long running show on Broadway and a huge international hit so I must be wrong. But it is my review and that’s what I think. The singing was not so great either. Rosario Dawson acquits herself, but Tracie Thoms is the only one with real ability. The acting was either flat or over the top. The good part was that the story does capture the feelings of hopelessness and confusion of people living with the AIDS epidemic at that time. The DVD extra on Jonathan Larson’s career was far better than the movie itself.