Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Having already reviewed RENT (Columbia Pictures/Revolution Studios; rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving drugs and sexuality, and for some strong language; 135 mins.; released November 23, 2005) when it arrived in the Cineplex (you can read it here), I found myself with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I always had a fond heart for Jonathan Larson's celebrated musical, which was based loosely on Puccini's opera La Boheme. Although many gripe that the source material is dated, the play's depiction of a New York slum racked with homelessness and AIDS was a heartbreaking and powerful portrait of what one man experienced for himself living out his boho days in Alphabet City. The tragic death of Larson at age 35 right before the show's breakthrough only cemented what was a labor of both love and life.

But like many “Rent-heads” who were hoping for the movie to make the feature film translation, I found myself envisioning the movie in my own imagination. I tried to see how a director like Spike Lee or Martin Scorsese, both of whom were once part of the project, would approach the material. Given the advent of the elaborate musical with Bah Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge and Rob Marshall's Chicago, I was expecting RENT to come alive with a passion that would've matched how the play once was performed over 10 years ago.

The project found itself in the hands of Chris Columbus, though, and many fans started to panic. But given the evidence on screen, Columbus may have his heart in the right place, but he kind of lets down the material in some way. RENT was a gritty if optimistic experience on the stage, charged with sexuality and raw power that was conveyed via an infectious musical score by Larson. It dealt with AIDS and drug addiction, as well as questions of mortality, and it wore its heart on its sleeve. I trust Columbus' instincts more than I would a lot of other directors who I would consider hacks, but the truth of the matter is this: the slick, workmanlike Columbus has never directed a movie musical before, and this is inescapable whenever I watch this movie.

Just to glance over the plot, once again for old time's sake, the movie concerns East Village buddies Mark (Anthony Rapp), an aspiring documentary filmmaker, and Roger (Adam Pascal), a lonely guitarist whose girlfriend committed suicide after finding out they were both HIV-positive (this detail is unfortunately omitted from the film). Living in a squalid flat in Tent City, they are confronted by Benny (Taye Diggs), an old friend who got married to the landlord's daughter and now demands Roger and Mark fork over their rent. They decide to protest, as does Mark's ex-girlfriend Maureen (Idina Menzel), a performance artist who replaced Mark with a feisty lawyer named Joanne (Tracie Thoms).

Another of the boys' friends, NYU philosophies teacher Collins (Jesse L. Martin), shows up to surprise Mark and Roger, but is beaten to near death by thieves. He meets a kind-hearted cross-dresser/percussionist named Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia, who won a Tony for his work on Broadway), and, despite both of them being AIDS-inflicted, they strike up a genuine love affair. Roger also falls for someone, Mimi (Rosario Dawson), a dancer with a heroin habit. At first reluctant to admit his feelings, Roger eventually warms up to Mimi, although her former affair with Benny will breed jealousy and guilt in Roger.

RENT endured a brief box-office run that did little to convert any new fans, but the DVD edition should do just that. As the movie unravels, we grow to appreciate most of these characters and their struggles to remain human in the face of fear and sickness. Although the Mimi/Roger affair remains rather tortured and at times heated, it's the Collins/Angel pair that really delivers the greatest compassion. Angel is basically a woman in a man's body, which makes him/her a fascinating character. The gay themes in recent movies have already been blown up to massive proportions, but damn it if it doesn't warm your heart to see the chemistry between Martin and Heredia.

Chemistry is what keeps RENT moving along. Almost all of the cast members originate from the original cast, with Dawson replacing Daphne Rubin-Vega and Thoms replacing Fredi Walker. However, they provide some real fresh blood to the content and deliver some real powerhouse singing in their respective numbers (“Out Tonight,” “Take Me or Leave Me”). The rest of the cast have grown up inhabiting these characters, and they give them as much dimension as possible, with the most significant improvement being Jesse L. Martin as Collins. Chalk it up to age, but this man's voice has only gotten more soulful than ever before. Listen to his reprise of “I'll Cover You,” his and Angel's love theme, at the funeral of Angel, and then compare it to how he delivered it on the original cast recordings.

The movie can't be just about the cast, though, and that's where the disappointment resides. Columbus and adapting screenwriter Stephen Chbosky have unfortunately tried to ground the play instead of retaining the operatic majesty of Larson's original vision. Dialogue that was once sung via catchy passages between the actual songs is played out here as straight dialogue, which diminishes their impact. Columbus' staging is also awry: in an attempt to make use the scenery, the “Another Day” sequence has been shot so that Roger is shouting at Mimi, who was thrown out by Roger, from the fire escape balcony. Speaking of bad scenery, what was with the music video-style sandy mountains Roger sings against during “What You Own,” anyway?

At least the music remains mostly untouched, and that seals my recommendation. Larson penned rock, pop, salsa, R&B, gospel, and ballad songs that could convey character development but also had hooks that lasted for days. Producer Rob Cavallo, the man behind Green Day's Grammy-winning American Idiot, updates the songs with organic yet dynamic instrumental arrangements that blow away what was once recorded for the cast recordings. All the expected high points, such as “Seasons of Love” (pushed up to the opening credits), “Rent,” “La Vie Boheme,” and “Tango: Maureen,” which Columbus makes a really splendid sequence for in the film, have never sounded better with the time I spent appreciating the play.

But I've spent enough time rehashing my old review, so on to the DVD speculations. Sony have given RENT a lovingly-crafted digital presentation that is both a keeper in the audio and visual departments. Presented in its aspect ratio of 2.40:1, anamorphically-enhanced as always, the picture has the freshness of something that was finished yesterday. The sharpness levels are spot-on, and given the amount of night-time sequences shot inside and out, blackness and shadow details are solid. I'm pretty sure that the opening scene with the burning eviction notices had some digital effects, but I couldn't tell, mainly because flaws were non-existent. Flesh tones look surprisingly accurate, although I'm pretty sure that a real junkie wouldn't look like Mimi as we see her in this film.

Dolby Digital 5.1 is the soundtrack's statement of purpose, and I loved every nearly second It played out on my home theater. Given the surround-sound space, the musical numbers have been given a robust, giddily spacious mix that manages to balance vocals and instrumentation without stepping overboard. Bass is warm and helps to bolster the songs' energies. Effects have been lovingly spread with directional and ambient qualities from the front and back speakers. Dialogue roots in the center channel, and bears no lack of clarity whatsoever. There is a French language dub in DD 5.1, and optional subtitles in English and French, too.

Ditto the excellent animated menus on both the DVDs, with “Seasons of Love” coming at you like a bum on a Rolls Royce. The extras kick off with audio commentary with Chris Columbus and actors Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. Although regrettably bleeped due to the occasional f-bomb, especially with regards to Jesse Martin's on-set improvisation of a greeting for Mark and Roger, the track is mostly a chance for Columbus to defend his many bad decisions, such as the streamlining of the film to get a PG-13 rating as well as the decision to remove certain songs and passages of dialogue, especially between the characters played by the two men speaking alongside him (well, not really…Rapp and Pascal “phone in” their comments). We get some on-set anecdotes, details on various gaffes, information on how the movie differs from the play, details on the various locations used to substitute for NYC, and even a reference to Roger Ebert, who gave the movie a slightly negative written review after rewarding the movie thumbs up with Richard Roeper.

The second disc contains all the other extra features, and I just want to work backwards in my detail of them. We get a series of trailers for the movies The Da Vinci Code, Benchwarmers, Freedomland, Marie Antoinette, The Legend of Zorro, Fun With Dick and Jane and Memoirs of a Geisha, but the theatrical trailer for RENT itself is not to be seen. We also get two public service announcements for the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation and the National Marfan Foundation, the latter a charity devoted to researching the disease that killed Larson.

There are five deleted scenes with optional commentary from Columbus, Rapp and Pascal. Although a couple of them are clunky re-writes of more sung dialogue from the original play, particularly during the second part of “Happy New Year,” we find both the excised “Halloween” and the other half of “Goodbye Love” in this section. “Halloween” adds some much-needed character development for Mark, and “Goodbye Love” explores the tension between Mark and Roger upon the latter man's decision to leave for Santa Fe, as well as provides some more time for the superb Rosario Dawson. There is an alternate ending, which shows the cast once again singing on the stage they occupied at the start of the movie, but that thankfully got replaced at the insistence of Chbosky.

The real icing on this cake is the six-part No Day But Today, a 109-minute documentary that gets into detail about the inspirations for and the execution of the play, as well as providing a making-of featurette for the film. Tracing Jonathan Larson's life from wannabe actor to Sondheim-worshipping artist, we see archival footage and photos of this man, as well as testimonials from many friends, colleagues and family members who outline the desperation and pressure of Larson's development of RENT as well as the many projects he had to abandon. He had an ambition to bring back musical theatre for the modern age, and wanted to get across his experiences living alongside squatters, hobos and friends who were dying of AIDS one-by-one. Given these facts, it's best to watch either the play or the movie with the right knowledge of Larson's life just to see how much of his experiences ended up crafting his postmortem achievement. The biography tends to be just as sad, if not more so, than the story itself.

I gave the movie three stars beforehand, but for this DVD edition, I am promoting another star on the basis of not only the movie itself, but also the treatment given to it by the studio. RENT deserves the chance to find an audience on DVD, especially given the fine array of bonus features and the awesome a/v presentation. I think the movie should get remade better sometime in the future, but it wouldn't be with the original cast and it might end up more disappointing than I felt about Columbus' take. Anyway, here's to you ending up with 525,600 reasons to either love or hate this movie, hoping just not to take it for granted.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older