Rent (PG-13)

I’ve always been a great admirer of movies, shows, or stories that take place during a specific and structured time frame   This element adds to the intrigue and frame of reference for the viewer – whether its “License to Drive” or “Trojan War” (two great comedic tales that follow the epic though comical struggles of a protagonist and take place all in one night) or the TV show “24,” where agent Jack Bauer must save the world in one day – divided equally by 24 intervals of one hour each.  Movies like “Nick of Time” and “12 Angry Men” play out in a real-time atmosphere that fuels the buildup of tension and excitement to near orgasmic proportions.  The defined structure offers the viewer a relatability to the characters and situations that are absent from films with no discernible timeline.

Everyone compares their own life events to the fixed structure of a calendar – I personally can recall what I was doing and where I was each and every New Years Eve going back nearly 20 years.  We all ask ourselves “what was I doing exactly one year ago today” (no one asks what was going on 360 days ago).

Based on a successful Broadway musical of the same name (itself an adaptation of the opera “La boheme” by Giacomo Puccini) the 2005 movie “Rent” is riddled with entertaining and catchy musical numbers and a gripping story.  What intrigues me the most is that the movie depicts the events of its characters and their lives during a time frame of exactly one year.  As an introductory song (and one that it replayed throughout the film) the one-year time span is dissected as 525,600 minutes and how much can happen in this limited (in terms of the universe) amount of time.

Rent begins on Christmas Eve 1989 and follows the struggles of a group of bohemian types living in New York City.  The group of friends deal with the shadow of AIDS, their attempts at successful careers, and the difficulty in coming up with money to pay their rent.  The film is done almost entirely as a musical, with each character’s introduction and back-story told through very entertaining songs.

Six of the original Broadway cast members star in the film, and as they reprise their roles you will quickly see that this is what makes the musical and acting camaraderie portions work so well.  Too often Hollywood tries to fit square holes in round pegs and it just doesn’t work.

The main characters are as follows: Mark Cohen (Anthony Rapp), an aspiring filmmaker and the only male character not suffering from AIDS.  When the movie begins, Mark is reeling over his girlfriend Maureen (the striking Idina Menzel) who has just left him to be with a woman named Joanne (Tracie Thoms).  Mark resides with musician and recovering drug addict Roger (Adam Pascal), who begins a relationship with neighboring exotic dancer Mimi (Rosario Dawson.) Mark and Rogers former roommate Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin), has just returned to New York from MIT and begins a relationship with drag queen Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia) who turns out to be the strongest member of the entire group.  The primary antagonist is Benjamin Coffin III (Taye Diggs), who is the son-in-law of the landlord and is trying to evict the friends.

I won’t begin to pretend I have any idea what goes into a Broadway musical or play but I do know that Director Chris Columbus does a great job of mixing the eccentric and ensemble cast, each with a heart wrenching buildup and history and woven together in a way so believable their friendship comes off as genuine.  The musical numbers dispersed throughout give you the idea of how the characters are growing and adapting to one another as the year goes on – knowing full well that many of the characters have a limited time left due to their illness.  One particularly moving scene shows the members of an AIDS support group vanishing one by one as the days go by.

After watching “Rent” you will think just how much can transpire in your own life in just 525,600 minutes.

– by Matt Christopher