3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Cyrano

2021, Joe Wright (Hanna) -- download

I am doing something I generally don't do, start writing the post before I finish watching the movie. This one has been in my Downloads for quite a while, a few years maybe. I generally don't ascribe to musicals but something about the songs, as presented in the trailer, worked for me. And I have always been a sucker for love unrequited. 

Alas it is proving to be not as convincing, where I can cheekily say the trailers to me were like Cyrano's words pretending to be Christian's, and the movie itself is, perhaps as my full half-way-through opinion is not formed, more true Christian? The songs are dancing, as everyone in the background dances, between the exact kind of modern pop love ballad I gravitate towards and oh-gawds-cringe-can-they-just-stop-singing.

WTF, part of this write before finishing ideal was to comment on Kent having seen it and use some of his also-not-fond-of-musicals opinions to further fuel my own thoughts. But, he has no post, not even on Letterboxd. I really need a more reliable conduit into the alternate realities where I know some of the posts have gone.

Of note, this adaptation of the original 19th century play about a guy with a big nose, is based on a 2019 off-Broadway adaptation penned/directed by Erica Schmidt, who writes the screenplay here, and it also starred Peter Dinklage. For some reason, that makes it more appealing to me. It also dawned on me, that in a world where I am constantly watching the adaptations of my favourite properties (video games, comic books, novels....) successfully and unsuccessfully, I would imagine the fans of this stage production would like to see it carried on through an extended vision? Or loathe it? That is the adaptation way...

OK, done.

Look! That's Glen Hansard! A "real" singer! I was hoping the three singing soldiers, of which he was one, were all semi-known pop/folk singers, but alas, one more is, and the other is just stock-n-trade stage actor.

Do I write about the plot? I mean, we all know the plot, basically, right? Cyrano de Bergerac (Peter Dinklage, The Station Agent) is a French soldier, a bit of a pompous wordsmith, known for his fighting ability and for being the leader of a regiment of guards. He is in love with local noble Roxanne (Haley Bennett, The Magnificent Seven), who is being pursued by a nobleman. In appears Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr, Elvis), a penniless man who joins the ranks of Cyrano's regiment, is spied by Roxanne at a stage production, and instantly the two fall in love, classic love at first sight. Roxanne asks Cyrano, her oldest friend, who is also secretly in love with her, to help her connect with Christian. Meanwhile Christian can't put three words together with any sense, so Cyrano offers to be his voice, his words, his pen, and thus letters are written and love is expressed and a romance begun.

But I am not sure if I recall how the actual story goes after that. Tragedy, I guess? I have to admit, the primary adaptation I know is Roxanne the Steve Martin movie, "Because I was afraid of worms, Roxanne! Worms!" 

So yeah, tragedy.

As I mentioned, the music almost always didn't work for me. There were a few bits here and there that caught my heart, the way the music cut into the trailer did, but for the most part it all fell into the "interrupting a good story by breaking into song" category. But what did work for me was the setting, the Probably Not France shooting locations in Spain, the dusty, crumbling fort and streets,  the Probably Not Proper Period costuming... there is such a detail to everything even if it is not age nor location appropriate; it all looks so ... pretty. In the end, I believed Dinklage in the role, and I would have probably preferred the stage production, as at least then, I was going in for the exactly proscribed media.