Thursday, May 19, 2022

Cyrano (Amazon Prime)

 

Cyrano (Amazon Prime)

You know when you finally watch a film you intended to watch and your reaction is, ”What the hell”? I had no idea Cyrano was a musical; I am not a musical kind of guy. But in truth is this is a hybrid of a musical and a historical story. The long meaty nose of the original  Cyrano De Bergerac  is replaced by the diminutive height of Peter Dinklage. This is a clever, beautiful and tender movie. The songs are excellent and support the narrative. I have no ability to critique singing, but the songs sounded  damn good. Haley Bennett, who plays Roxanne, clearly is a trained singer. I think Peter Dinklage does speak singing in a singular octave.

Visually the film is beautiful. The period costumes and make up are wonderful. I think for men’s makeup they used Marilyn Mason as their inspiration. The sets are limited to a small town and a battlefield filmed in Sicily.

I enjoyed the film more than I expected. Dinklage gave a heartfelt performance and his unrequited love for Roxanne is palpable. Kevin Harrison Jr. , who plays Christian de Neuvillette, is Roxanne’s tongue tied love interest. Ben Mendelson plays Colonel De Guichi, is totally unrecognizable, another casualty of makeup. The entire cast were excellent.

Unfortunately Cyrano was a victim of Covid. The production cost was $30m with a box office of $6.4m but it has a Rotten Tomato score of 86%. The good news for us it costs only $5.99 to rent.

 

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