Rent

Jonathan Larson's musical updating of La Bohème to the streets of 1989-‘90 New York City—an immediate smash when it opened in 1996 on Broadway, where it's been playing ever since—has been turned into a big, splashy film by Chris Columbus (who helmed the first two Harry Potter flicks). Heightened by the tragic death of Larson days before Rent's triumphant Broadway premiere, the poignancy of this story about urban artists—straight, gay, and bisexual—struggling against penury, drug addiction, and AIDS came across more forcefully on the stage (and, truth be told, Larson's rock songs tend to blend together, and are often characterized by weak lyrics). Like another long-running Broadway powerhouse, A Chorus Line, that also took a full decade of trial and error before making its way to the screen in 1985, Rent—the movie—is a serious disappointment, and the director's decision to use most of the original cast (who now seem rather too old for their parts) doesn't help. Perhaps both productions are simply too intrinsically theatrical to succeed on film: certainly Rent remains curiously stagebound despite the effort to open it up with outdoor dance sequences and music-video-style camerawork. Optional. [Note: Available in either widescreen or full screen versions, DVD extras on this double-disc set include audio commentary by director Chris Columbus and costars Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal, the feature-length “making-of” documentary “No Day But Today” (112 min.), five deleted scenes and musical performances with optional commentary (12 min.), two PSAs for Jonathan Larson's Performing Arts Foundation and The National Marfan Foundation (7 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a fine extras package for a so-so stage-to-screen adaptation.] (F. Swietek)