ince Chris Columbus’ latest film is devoid of irony or pretension, cruelly belittling its earnest mediocrity feels like mocking a high-school talent show. At its best, a production of Rent serves as a self-righteous and aggressively cheerful ode to its own perceived rebellious nature—its energetic posturing sweeps the audience far from cynicism and into a good-natured rant against everything guilty liberals love to hate. Aside from a few ill-executed moments, the film is capable, but the material does not reach its full potential in this placid and conventional light. Chris Columbus obviously lacks the passion to justify the story he attempts to tell, and the boisterous material feebly seethes beneath a heavily sanitized surface.

Rent tells the story of an anti-bourgeois community coming to terms with AIDS, the media age, and corporate America. Specific plotlines aren’t as important as the ass-kicking attitude displayed in the cast of drag queens, strippers, and struggling artists. This film adaptation features solid performances, attractive art direction and costumes, and gorgeously arranged music. Considering this potential, blaming Chris Columbus for the relative dullness of the film is a no-brainer.

The lack of frills seems appropriate at first—the film opens with an unpresumptuous chord, a black-and-white title card, and the principal cast singing upon an empty stage. As effective as this approach briefly appears, Columbus quickly bores the audience with his dependence upon two camera angles: an establishing shot viewing the cast dead-on, and a single variance looking diagonally to the right side of the stage. After two to three minutes of switching back and forth, the director has exposed a disturbing preference for simplistic filmmaking devices. This continuing lack of inspiration neutralizes many of Rent’s worthwhile aspects.


Although the story features several soap-opera moments, the movie shuns melodramatic wallowing. Ironically, Rent’s constant histrionics creates consistent flow. Perhaps a more realistic rhythm would be impossible considering the vast profusion of death, drug withdrawal, and white-knuckled survival against all odds. Nevertheless, I find something poetic in a universe where everyday life includes constant crusading against injustice whilst emitting frosty breath and angrily striding through the streets of New York City. The tear-jerking scenes remain short and sweet (a beneficial trait during the cheesier moments), and the characters eagerly move on to their next hopeless crusade. For better or for worse, this childish idealism uniquely characterizes the Chris Columbus version of Rent.

This juvenile perspective extends beyond the complacent virtue of the film’s message. In order to accommodate the unambiguous morality, the movie excises the implied hypocrisy of the characters. Not only denying the players three-dimensional personalities, Rent also heavily curbs their behavior. Gay men become inoffensively chipper tourist attractions, and lesbian affection exists via vampish snarling. For every brazen mention of masturbation or marijuana, somebody compensates by yelling about the ‘fricken police.’

Despite the cowardly inoffensiveness and although the film awkwardly proves the essentiality of a good director, I still feel benevolence toward Rent. Chris Columbus has his uninteresting heart in the right place. A few sequences do manage cinematic potential, even if the majority of the film serves as a bland music video. Mediocrity is not, after all, a capital offense.