We’ve seen two noteworthy big-screen versions of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play up to now: José Ferrer’s Oscar-winning turn in director Michael Gordon’s modest 1950 American translation; and Gérard Depardieu’s robust, Oscar-nominated work in director Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s far more lavish 1990 French adaptation.
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| Cyrano (Peter Dinklage) has long loved Roxanne (Haley Bennett) from afar, but kept silent out of the fear that she'd find his worship comical or insulting. She, in turn, has eyes only for a new King's Guard recruit glimpsed briefly in a crowd. |
Director Joe Wright’s Cyrano is adapted from Erica Schmidt’s new 2018 stage musical, with Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett reprising their starring roles; Schmidt also handles the script. And while Rostand’s story seems an unlikely candidate for musical resurrection, the same could have been said of (among others) Les Miz and Evita … and “unlikely” certainly didn’t damage their popularity.
That said, this Cyrano is an awkward beast. Many of Aaron and Bryce Dessner’s songs aren’t memorable, and several interrupt/interfere with the on-screen action in the manner of all clumsy musicals.
On the positive side, Dinklage owns this film; his performance is a masterpiece of carefully nuanced expressions and body language. He puts heart and soul into even the most trivial of lines, and his frequent displays of silent, earnest anguish — it’s that sort of story — are heartbreaking.
Bennett’s work is similarly charismatic, albeit on a different level. Her Roxanne shimmers with giddy, joyous delight at everything she encounters: most particularly when she swoons over her desire to be swept away by passionate, soul-deep love.
Wright’s touch, with the accomplished assistance of frequent cinematographer colleague Seamus McGarvey, is stunning. All of their visual tricks are in evidence: the sliding walls and lengthy tracking shots; the arresting framing of scenes and characters; and the expansive, ethereal depiction of war. (Think back to their work on 2007’s Atonement.)
When things work here, they work extraordinarily well.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen often enough.
The setting is Paris, the year 1640. Roxanne attends a stage performance in a theater hosting an audience that ranges from the cream of Parisian society to thieves, pickpockets and cutpurses. She’s escorted by the powerful Duke De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn), who craves her in a way that is slimy from his first words; rashly heedless of this, Roxanne flirts as a means of enjoying his wealth and status, while having no intention of marrying him.
She chances to lock eyes with newly arrived King’s Guard recruit Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), buried within the rabble-rousing theatergoers. The connection is instant and electric, but he’s swept away by the crowd.
The play begins, with its grotesque star — Mark Benton, as Montfleury — overacting to a preposterous degree that enrages a voice from the rear, who demands that this artistic mountebank exit the stage. Thus we meet Cyrano (Dinklage), an unexpectedly refined theatrical purist — and skilled, long-admired warrior in the King’s Guard — whose subsequent antics enrage De Guiche’s companion, Viscount Valvert (Joshua James).
The witty, tart-tongued Cyrano wins the subsequent duels of arch words and then swords, albeit with unfortunate consequences.
(Schmidt’s wordplay throughout this film, between various sets of characters, is delightfully clever.)
Cyrano and Roxanne have known each other since she was a child. She regards him as her best friend; he has long carried an unspoken torch, believing that his diminutive size would preclude her regarding him as a potential suitor.
The first of Dinklage’s many marvelous scenes comes the following day, when he finally works up the courage to confess his feelings: encouraged by her rapturous declarations of love, little realizing that she’s directing such feelings not at him, but about the briefly glimpsed Christian.
Roxanne is equally adept at wordplay and double entendres, and this byplay is quite amusing … until, suddenly, it isn’t. Dinklage’s forlorn expression, when comprehension dawns, is heartbreaking. And then Cyrano rallies, just as quickly, when Roxanne begs him to “look after” Christian.
He’s her best friend; of course he agrees. With agony radiating from his gaze.
Not that she notices.
Two elements become clear in Schmidt’s innovative handling of Rostand’s play. The first has been obvious since Dinklage’s initial appearance: The unusually long nose, which has characterized all previous Cyranos — the “blemish” that has made him feel unworthy of Roxanne — has been replaced by Dinklage’s stature. This switch is ingenious, and it certainly doesn't interfere with the story’s key romantic triangle.
The second is more subtle, and revealed gradually by Bennett’s carefully shaded performance. We begin to wonder if Roxanne — despite her intelligence and wit — is too vain, too superior, too unintentionally cruel and too shallow, to be worthy of any of these potential suitors.
But even if such thoughts are justified, they don’t resonate until much later. Meanwhile, we’re treated to the delightful charade that has reappeared in countless literary, stage, TV and film riffs of Rostand’s play: Cyrano’s reluctant agreement to ghostwrite the impassioned but under-educated Christian’s many letters to Roxanne.
This prompts the film’s first genuinely magical song: “Every Letter,” performed in montage by Cyrano, Roxanne and Christian, against an opulent display of dancers and a veritable snowstorm of missives going back and forth.
Alas, Christian is the least of Cyrano’s problems. The bitterly jealous De Guiche, determined to have Roxanne by any means necessary, thunders his intentions with another well-staged song (“What I Deserve”). And with the oft-mentioned, ongoing Franco-Spanish War (1635-59) looming in the background, De Guiche’s revenge could be catastrophic.
This eventually leads to the most powerful song — “Wherever I Fall” — sung by several members of the King’s Guard: notably one played by Glen Hansard, the singer/actor best remembered as the male lead in 2007’s charming Once, and whose eloquent voice here will draw tears from stone.
Sarah Greenwood’s lavish production design is breathtaking, and this film’s sole Academy Award nomination — for the costume design by Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran — is well earned.
Alas, Wright and Schmidt lose their hold on us, midway through the third act. De Guiche unexpectedly vanishes — rather odd, considering his looming presence earlier — and the conclusion is jarringly abrupt. As the screen faded to black, Constant Companion and I exchanged identical glances of confusion: Seriously? That’s it?
This Cyrano certainly deserves to be seen for Dinklage’s performance. I only wish the entire film had lived up to his work.
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