Product Description
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Set in New York City's gritty East Village, the revolutionary
rock opera RENT tells the story of a group of bohemians
struggling to live and pay their rent. "Measuring their lives in
love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance
while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS
epidemic. RENT is based on Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer and Tony
Award winning musical, one of the longest running shows on
Broadway. The raw and riveting musical stars Rosario Dawson, Taye
Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel,
Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp and Tracie Thoms and is directed by
Chris Columbus.
From .co.uk
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Rent, the show that in 1996 gave voice to a Broadway generation,
has finally become an energetic, passionate, and touching movie
musical. Based loosely on Puccini's La Bohème, it focuses on the
year in the life of a group of friends in New York's East
Village--"bohemians" who live carefree lives of art, music, sex,
and drugs. Well, carefree until Mark, an aspiring filmmaker
(Anthony Rapp), and Roger, an aspiring songwriter (Adam Pascal),
find out they owe a year's rent to Benny (Taye Diggs), a former
friend who had promised them free residence when he married the
landlord's daughter. Roger has also attracted the attention of
his downstairs neighbor, Mimi (Rosario Dawson), while Mark's
former girlfriend, Maureen (Idina Menzel), has found a new
romance in a lawyer named Joanne (Tracie Thoms). Philosophy
professor Tom (Jesse L. Martin) finds his soul mate in drag queen
Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia). But because this is the
late-'80s, the threat of AIDS is always present.
The remarkable thing about Rent the movie is that nearly 10 years
after the show debuted on Broadway, six of the eight principals
return in the roles they originated. They're a bit older than
would be ideal for their characters, but they do have the
advantage of having learned the show directly from creator
Jonathan Larson (who died of an aortic aneurysm while the show
was in previews), plus they started young--we're not exactly
talking Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford here. Alongside a
polished performance like Rapp's--sometimes observer-commentator,
sometimes participant in two of the score's showstoppers, "The
Tango Maureen" and "La Vie Boheme"--the two new additions (Thoms
in place of Fredi Walker, Dawson in place of the edgier Daphne
Rubin-Vega) slip comfortably into the ensemble; the pivotal
Dawson makes a seductive case as Mimi when she tempts Roger in
the mesmerizing "Light My Candle" or burns up the stage of the
Catscratch Club in "Out Tonight." Moviegoers who have an aversion
to people who break into song while walking down the street
probably won't have their minds changed by Rent (even if they are
singing rock songs), and the gritty subject matter and lack of
big-name stars make it unlikely to cross over to general
audiences the way Chicago did. But fans of musicals should find
"Seasons of Love" as stirring as ever, and the show's passionate
admirers--the "Rentheads"--probably couldn't have wished for a
more sympathetic director than Rent fan Chris Columbus, or a more
faithful representation of the show they love. --David Horiuchi