'Cyrano' Movie Review - An Amazing Musical Starring Peter Dinklage as the Witty Guardsman
An impressive adaptation of the classic that earned every Oscar nomination - but only got one.
Cyrano de Bergerac (Peter Dinklage) is a wit and self-taught poet who has long been in love with the beautiful Roxanne (Haley Bennett). True, he believes that he is not worthy of her attention, and is embarrassed by his physical features: Cyrano is a small person. One day, he still decides to open up to the girl, but she is ahead of him and says that she was struck by a young guard Christian (Kelvin Harrison), who serves with de Bergerac in the same regiment. The guy, albeit brave and kind, does not shine with poetic abilities at all - and without an elegant word, romance in the 17th century is simply impossible. Cyrano undertakes to help Christian, writes letters on his behalf and creates an ideal betrothed for Roxanne: with the appearance of a handsome guardsman and his sharp mind. But there is one problem: at the same time, the local influential aristocrat De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn) is claiming the girl's hand.
The play "Cyrano de Bergerac" by Edmond Rostand is so deeply ingrained in world culture that many do not even think about its influence on other works. If you have seen a scene in at least one comedy or melodrama where a shy guy communicates with a girl while someone else tells him the words (and this can be seen even in Dumb and Dumber, even in Asterix at the Olympic Games), know this cliché didn't come out of nowhere. Of the last unexpected heirs of Cyrano, one can recall the “Protagonist”: there, the character of Joe Keery created the image of the perfect guy for his beloved in the same way, so that she finally realized that she had always loved him in return. Because of all this, going back to the original today can be a very tricky task. On the one hand, the classics do not become obsolete - the characters, phrases and conflicts written by Rostand have remained relevant after centuries. On the other hand, it will be difficult to get rid of the feeling that the viewer has already seen all this somewhere, even if he has never read Cyrano de Bergerac and has not watched any of the many film adaptations.
Director Joe Wright acted in the most reasonable way - he did not touch the foundation of the story, but masterfully worked on the details. Starting with seemingly minor changes, such as the fact that the physical feature of the hero is no longer a huge nose, but a small stature. Finishing with rather bold aesthetic decisions: discreet anachronisms (at the Cyrano theater, almost a rap battle with an arrogant actor begins, during dance numbers you can see elements of break dance), unexpected action scenes in the middle of a historical melodrama, and finally, a form almost rock -opera. The latter appeared for a reason: the fact is that Cyrano is not a direct adaptation of Rostand's play, but a film adaptation of the musical by Erika Schmidt based on it.
The relationship between Wright and the classics has always been ambiguous: that his "Pride and Prejudice", that especially "Anna Karenina" still divide the audience into opposing camps. But here he amazingly combines the sensuous pathos of the musical with deliberately mundane aesthetics: his 17th-century France is devoid of any charm, it is dirty, cramped and sweaty, and the elite in their wigs and makeup looks terribly ridiculous. At the same time, people still often speak in verse and dance majestically: the unattractive environment only emphasizes the beauty of the choreography and the purity of the feelings of the characters. West Side Story worked in much the same way, placing Shakespearean passions in gloomy New York neighborhoods.
"Cyrano" finds poetics in everyday things: the musical number here can be born both from the fencing training of the guards, and from the banal reading of the letter. It seems like Joe Wright was born to make musicals. In his past films, excessive formalism sometimes interfered with the result - this was the case, for example, with the scolded "Woman in the Window". Here, thanks to the pointed sensibility of the genre, brazen artistry is more than appropriate. Roxanne walks around the room in slow-mo, surrounded by a pile of letters falling from the ceiling; people and chandeliers soar skyward without explanation; soldiers are marching to certain death, singing a poignant song that "Paradise is where I fall." In a more restrained picture, this would look like something redundant. In "Cyrano" it makes you shiver.
It also helps that Erica Schmidt's original source is a good musical in its own right. In the performance of the actors, the already piercing songs in Cyrano become a powerful dramatic weapon: here I must say thanks to Wright for not trying to bring the voices to the “ideal”, did not introduce studio artificiality, allowed the artists to sing a little awkwardly, but with great vitality. In general, the performances in the film, as one, are amazing. Dinklage plays one of his best roles, once again proving his status as one of the strongest actors of the generation. Bennett is a terribly underrated artist who has long earned far more fame than she receives. Harrison, perhaps, will finally come out of supporting roles. And Mendelssohn, albeit again playing a nominal antagonist, demonstrates a deep acting range: few other people can play a person who is both funny, ridiculous, but also infinitely frightening. The fact that Cyrano was almost completely ignored at the Oscars, giving only a nomination for costumes, is the biggest miss of the awards this year.
This article was sponsored by Linwood Holmes
Comentários