WARNING: this post contains some open and some blurred spoilers, not about the original play (which should be beyond spoiling after 120+ years), but about the 2022 film version and some of the changes it makes to the original.
The film opened this weekend, and I saw it this afternoon. It turns out to be based on a 2019 Off-Broadway production by Erica Schmidt that also starred Peter Dinklage. Like many posters here, I have been a lifelong fan of the story and seen many versions, but I had not heard of that production.
Joe Wright has made a visually beautiful and lush film, with remarkable settings and lovely costumes, and a few memorable scenes. For instance, Cyrano’s fight sequence against ten men is brilliantly choreographed in what appeared to be one long continuous shot. My brief foray into fencing in college, a hundred years ago, gives me no special insight into the quality of stage/screen swordfighting, but I thought the swordplay was good, if not quite at the level of The Princess Bride. I further suspect that real fencing experts would say that a little person would face extraordinary difficulties battling with opponents of greater size. But the original Cyrano’s vanquishing of 100 assailants is also rather improbable, so let’s not quibble.
A small thing I liked about this version is that it kept one of my favorite lines: after Cyrano tells Roxanne about this fight, she says, “What courage!” To which he replies, sotto voce, “I’ve done better since,” because he has just endured learning that she is in love with Christian.
Sadly, there is little more I liked about the film. Schmidt’s pared-down telling of the story strips it of virtually all its humor and most of Cyrano’s clever wordplay. The acting is good, but the overall mood is glum, and Dinklage’s Cyrano never shows the brilliance, vivacity, and panache that make the character so attractive to the other characters and to us.
I was interested to see how the shift from nose to stature as Cyrano’s defining characteristic would play out, since the story is not so much about a man with a big nose, as about someone who doesn’t feel worthy of being loved. That is a sentiment we can all share, regardless of the size of our noses, and is undoubtedly one reason for the play’s enduring appeal.
Unfortunately, the change means that all of the mocking of Cyrano by other characters, and all of his devastating rejoinders – some of the play’s most delightful and character-defining scenes – had to be cut.
Decades ago it might have been possible to release a version filled with short jokes, but we have rightly moved past making fun of classes of people for their physical differences. But even today, a big-nosed Cyrano, as a class of one, can be the object of humorous derision without giving offense, all the more so because the revenge he takes on his mockers is so delightful.
It seems to me that any writer or director who had given this point serious consideration for more than a few minutes should have realized that changing the big nose to virtually any other physical trait would cut much of the heart out of the story, and would therefore not be worth attempting.
Like the OP, I was also concerned about making the story a musical, and with good reason, as it turns out. The songs are bland musically and lyrically, and IMHO add little to most scenes and positively detract from several. The worst of these is the ending, where Roxanne and Cyrano begin singing as he dies. In opera, a death aria can be made glorious by magnificent music, but this show’s music falls miles short of that ideal. Breaking into song at that moment destroyed the emotional impact of the scene for me, and would have been laughable if I hadn’t been so annoyed.
Among the film’s other flaws:
After Christian’s death on the battlefield, there is a lengthy song by three random soldiers bemoaning their imminent deaths in letters they are writing to loved ones. In a version that has cut so much, this unnecessary addition not only bogs down the story, but robs it of the opportunity to have retained some other element from the original.
The death scene is, IMHO, ruined by two things other than the music: instead of saying one of the most emotionally powerful lines in the play (if not all of literature), “I have loved only one man in my life, and have lost him twice,” this Roxanne sings, “I can’t lose you twice.”
The scene is further ruined by by Cyrano’s last line, “I have loved only my pride.” NO! He loved her, or the story is meaningless. We, the audience, can see Cyrano’s pride for what it is, but he cannot have such self-awareness at that moment. It negates the whole essence of his character.
For most posters here who clearly love the original, I would suggest you not bother to see it in the theaters, but wait to see it free or cheap at home, or just give it a miss entirely.
Of course, if there’s anyone who has seen it and has a different opinion, I’d be interested to hear it.
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