BEFORE: I had an extra slot before Memorial Day, so I saw the opportunity to drop this one in, right between two other films with Bashir Salahuddin. I know, this is a classic romance tale so it really belongs in a February chain, according to my own rules. But I couldn't work it in during this year's annual tribute to romance, and instead there were two modern riffs on the "Cyrano" story, both set in high schools (and both had Wolfgang Novogratz in them, look it up). So how could I watch two rip-offs of "Cyrano" this year and not also watch the reboot/remake?
I worked at the red-carpet premiere of this film, back in February (of course) 2022. Sure, I worked outside the whole time, on crowd control and ramp duty, but that's typical for one of these big events. They bring their own personnel to handle check-in and security, so that leaves very little for me to do - instead I tend to get stationed outside, but at least then I get to see all the limos pull up and the celebrities getting into the press tent, which is what happened with this one. The other down-side is then I have to stay there until midnight or 1 am to supervise the dismantling of the tents, but hey, longer shift means more hours and more money in the next paycheck.
Naturally when the film became available on premium cable, I recorded it and slapped it on a DVD, figuring I'd work it in somehow to the next romance chain in 2023. That didn't happen, so I have to try to make up for that now. This links to maybe one other romance film on my list, so it's fairly unlikely that I'll even get to it next February - so I'm comfortable in taking it off the list today. I've got maybe 90 romance films I haven't seen on DVD and streaming, so making a 30-film chain without this one should still be very possible. Theoretically, at least.
Bashir Salahuddin carries over from "A Simple Favor".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Half of It" (Movie #4,344), "Sierra Burgess Is a Loser" (Movie #4,347)
THE PLOT: Too self-conscious to woo Roxanne himself, wordsmith Cyrano de Bergerac helps young Christian nab her heart through love letters.
AFTER: Those two knock-off "Cyrano" films I watched in February - both had the classic love triangles at their hearts, but one was a gender-flipped version where the central character played in the marching band but was secretly in love with the school's star quarterback, and in the other one, the Cyrano character was also female, and Asian-American, but she was secretly in love with a girl, the same girl she was helping the school jock to impress. So yeah, I see how both of those tried to move the storyline to incorporate some 21st century sensibilities, but sometimes, at the end of the the day you've got to go old school.
Mostly, that is - this is another "sing-through" movie, like "Annette" was, so the vast majority of the dialogue here is sung rather than spoken, and at one point when Cyrano confronts the stage actor he doesn't like, it practically turns into a rap battle. Then Cyrano gets in a duel with someone who calls him a freak, and this set of scenes is probably the highlight of the entire film. The love triangle stuff we've all seen before, in various forms of course, just the twist here is that Cyrano is a dwarf and not just a guy with a big nose.
Cyrano's friend since childhood is Roxanne, and he's unable to profess his love for her because of his condition. Actually he seems like he's just about to finally tell her, of course Roxanne spoils it by confiding in her that's she's in love with the new palace guard rookie, Christian. She implores Cyrano, the captain of the guard, to make sure Christian doesn't get hazed, to protect him, and also wants Christian to write her a letter. Of course this sets up Cyrano with the opportunity to write love letters to Roxanne through Christian, if he can't love her directly then he can express his love for her indirectly. (What could POSSIBLY go wrong?)
The deception works for a while, but the problem here is that there's another person interested in Roxanne, the Duke de Guiche. The Duke grows tired of pursuing Roxanne without her loving him back, so he informs her by letter that when he gets back to town from the war, he's arranged for a priest to marry them, and if she's not into that, then he'll take her love by force without the marriage. Classy guy. Roxanne ignores the content of the letter and tells everyone that the priest is there to marry her and Christian. When the Duke arrives and finds that Roxanne has wed another man, he sends the whole guard unit to the front lines.
While at war, Cyrano writes a letter every day to Roxanne "from Christian", and also does his best to keep him from getting killed. There's another powerful song here as all of the soldiers dictate letters to their lovers or families, because they all believe they will die soon, and they don't want their loved ones to cry for them. Before their doomed mission, Christian sees the final letter that Cyrano has written to Roxanne, and together they debate whether Roxanne really loves Christian or the author of the letters and poems. Christian demands that Cyrano tell Roxanne the truth before he runs over the hill and into the enemy's line of fire.
Three years later, Cyrano is poor and still suffering from his war wounds, and he visits Roxanne at her nunnery, one last time. He reveals that he is the author of the letters, but only just before he dies. And Roxanne expresses her love for Cyrano, better late than never, I guess?
All of this is remarkably faithful to the original five-act play by Edmond Rostand, based on what I just read on Wikipedia. The only plot points that seem to be missing from the original are Roxanne's visit to the front lines in Act IV, and in the play Cyrano didn't die from war wounds, instead he died because someone dropped a log on his head from a tall building. You know, having a woman visit Cyrano at war doesn't really make much sense, so I think these two changes are for the better. It's very rare when someone changes a piece of classic literature and actually improves it, I think.
Also starring Peter Dinklage (last seen in "Three Christs"), Haley Bennett (last seen in "Swallow"), Kelvin Harrison Jr. (last seen in "Monster"), Ben Mendelsohn (last seen in "The Land of Steady Habits"), Monica Dolan (last seen in "Never Let Me Go"), Joshua James (last seen in "Darkest Hour"), Anjana Vasan (last seen in "Spider-Man: Far from Home"), Ruth Sheen (last seen in "Secrets & Lies"), Peter Wight (ditto), Glen Hansard (last seen in "Once"), Sam Amidon, Scott Folan, Mark Benton (last seen in "The Reckoning"), Richard McCabe (last seen in "Einstein and Eddington"), Tim McMullan (last seen in "Victoria & Abdul"), Mark Bagnall, Mike Shepherd (last seen in "Pan"), Paul Biddiss (last seen in "Criminal"), Katy Owen, Ray Strachan.
RATING: 7 out of 10 master bakers
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