I will confess that I was not familiar with the story of Cyrano — in any adaptation. In my brief research post-movie, I was horrified to learn that this play is something I should have been familiar with as a theater kid, and that the storyline has been adapted into hundreds of films and plays and musicals. 😅
So… All that said, I have absolutely nothing to compare this movie to. I cannot compare Peter Dinklage to a traditional Cyrano De Bergerac and I cannot compare this movie adaptation to the original play.
My review, then, is my unbiased opinion of the movie as a standalone. Perhaps when I’ve had the time to read/watch other adaptations, I’ll come back to it.
In case you, like me, are unfamiliar with the storyline: Cyrano de Bergerac is a fantastic poet, desperately in love with a woman named Roxanne. Cyrano fancies himself ugly (by societal norms, he’s always portrayed as “different” in some way. In Peter Dinklage’s case, of course, his wounded pride is due mainly to his height and “his face”) and he has deemed himself undeserving of love. He is, 100%, a miserable drama queen and chooses to stay that way. Truly, Cyrano, I feel you there.
So when Roxanne tells him she is desperately in love with a man whom she’s never even met, and begs him to get this man to write her letters, he obliges. The man, named Christian, however, isn’t great with words and begs the poet’s help. In his quest to keep the woman of his dreams happy, Cyrano becomes, basically, the first ghost writer and uses his feelings for Roxanne and his poetic genius to win her affection for Christian.
With every letter, Christian and Cyrano both fall more and more in love with Roxanne and she falls madly for the man behind the letters. The story comes to a dramatic climax where both men end up facing almost certain death.
I won’t spoil the ending, so here are my thoughts…
Peter Dinklage does a truly wonderful job in this role. He spans the spectrum of human emotion effortlessly, from broody and depressed drama queen to humorously witty, giddy, and hopeful, to hauntingly desperate. He brings a relatability and likability to the classic tortured genius trope we’ve all come to love.
The music.. was jarring. I really debated my feelings about this, because in places I very much enjoyed the musical numbers! Seeing Dinklage duet with Haley Bennet was a totally new experience; in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dinklage in a musical. However… I was not expecting a musical, and it didn’t always flow in a logical way. The first number, a song Bennet sings lamenting her loveless life, was a bit lackluster both lyrically and vocally. Once I had adjusted to her voice, and the abruptness with which the songs jumped in and out of the script, the music began to grow on me a bit. As a musical? 3.5/10.
Brutally honest take on the music aside, the rest of the movie was kind of a masterpiece and definitely a tearjerker. Bennet and Dinklage have good on-screen chemistry. Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr) started off kind of slow but ended up with a lot of emotional depth, as one does when they’re facing their death I guess 😅😅
Ben Mendelsohn plays a convincing villain as an ego-centric Count, and Bashir Salahuddin shines in a cute, quirky best friend role to Cyrano that had me giggling through the beginning of the movie.
Ultimately, without accounting for the music, Cyrano would get an 8/10 rating from me. I think, with the execution of the music, I’ll drop my complete rating to 7/10 with a sidebar that it’s still a must-see.
If you like period pieces, comedy, drama, and tearjerkers this one is for you. Musical theater nerds, prepare to cringe a liiiiiittle bit. But I’d rate this at least above the last screen adaption of Les Mis… So…. Eh?
Try it out, or don’t. I’m just a former theater kid who my husband found sobbing over a movie at 12:30am on a work night.
You can stream Cyrano on Amazon Prime.
The Midnight Review 