Last weekend Vero and Sandra convinced me to go see the movie Rent with them. Damn my weakness for movie popcorn!
It didn't seem that bad a movie, though I felt it was more of a rental. But with promises of popcorn and a good time, I folded like a nervous twenty-something showing a pair of twos. Experience teaches us both to listen to our instincts more closely.
So Rent is a Broadway musical moved to film. I'm a little curious to see the musical, wondering if it perhaps conveys the message better than the movie. I mean, there I saw a movie whose point completely eluded me well past the credits. Ok, it's cute and they sing and they dance and what am I supposed to understand from this?
I guess it's a problem with me: I expect something so all-encompassing as putting a musical play together to be such the undertaking that only the very best actually make it. I think I'm learning that such a complicated effort as getting a play ready for audiences thins out the options so much that anything that can actually be completed is showed, regardless of how good it is, simply because there isn't enough choice. Maybe I missed the point. And truthfully I ask you: who cares?
What was the point? Oh: Rent. You would think the title alone would be enough to tell you what to do with this movie, but in case it didn't here's what I say: rent it. If you're into Broadway musicals turned movies, that is. If you saw Chicago and loved the movie, don't get your hopes up -- it's nowhere near as good. If you like musicals because they sing and dance and everybody seems to take it as normal behavior, then Rent is an option (although I recommend the Buffy episode Once More with Feeling instead). Rent is cute and kinda fun, though it did seem to go on for ever...
