RENT, directed by Chris Colombus is movie adaptation to the Pulitzer and Tony Award winning musical with the same title. This movie portrait the life a group of bohemians in the East Village of New York, some of them are HIV positive. They struggle their life in a lot of challenge to live in poverty. They are Mark, Roger, Mimi, Collins, Angel, Maureen, Joanne and their landlord Ben. Together they present how the real life in New York is.
One night in Christmas Eve, their landlord shut down electricity in their apartment during the eviction warning because all of inhabitants not yet pay the rent. It gains a lot of protest, so they plan the biggest protest held by Maureen. Ben, the landlord asks both Mark and Roger to prevent this protest, but the protest yet be held.
The romance is about some character on RENT. Roger the guitarist, he had a trauma about his dead girfriend and drug abuse. He got a flirt from Mimi, go-go dancer in the Catscratch Club. Angel, a drag queen and Collins, MIT lecturer were homosexual couple. They both met each other when Collin attacked by bandit and Angel help him. And last Mark who got trouble as he dumped by Maureen, a bisexual girl. Maureen a talented artist had new lover named Joanne, a lawyer with over-possessive mind. There always upside down story of their romance inside.
They were a group of people who suffer injustice, but together they are strong. There is no future and no past, because no day but today. Someone might came and gone, but there still remain a memory they have. It is 525.600 minutes to count a year, during a year of life there are so many story to tell. The matter is not how much the time remain, but it is how to use the time to create the sweetest memory so later it would be sweetest goodbye.
As a musical based movie, RENT have various beautiful music score. The most famous is Season of Love, which always played at graduation party. The other soundtrack are wonderful, the song sang by the cast too, no dubbing. That's what makes this movie excellent.
RENT gives a nice picture of friendship in pluralism where judgment isn’t exist. That is why RENT gets success and reaches the nice revenue in box office. What can be more beautiful than a real life presented in a screen? Lets watch RENT, you will get the good things inside.
Cast of Rent:
- Anthony Rapp as Mark Cohen (Mark)
- Adam Pascal as Roger Davis (Roger)
- Rosario Dawson as Mimi Marquez (Mimi)
- Jesse L. Martin as Tom Collins (Collins)
- Wilson Jermaine Heredia as Angel Dumott Schunard (Angel)
- Idina Menzel as Maureen Johnson (Maureen)
- Tracie Thoms as Joanne Jefferson (Joanne)
- Taye Diggs as Benjamin Coffin III (Ben)
Reference:
Wikipedia
IMDB
East Village is a neighbourhood in Manhattan, New York. It started to become famous when in the 1950s it attracted the "beatnicks" from the beat generation. The neighbourhood had become the site of counterculture, protests and riots in those days.
ReplyDeleteMany music movements such as punk rock was born there. Many famous rock bands have developed their performance theresuch as Velvet Undeground, The Grateful Dead, Sly & the Family Stone, Allman Brothers etc. Also newer generation such as New York Dolls, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Blondie, Madonna, Talking Heads, the Beastie Boys, Anthrax, and The Strokes are conneted to this neighbourhood.
So it will be interesting to see the condition of the neigbourhood now and its relation to its past through this film. I could not wait to see it.