Peter Viney's Blog

Directed by Joe Wright
Screenplay by Erica Schmidt
Based on Erica Schmidt’s 2018 stage musical, which in turn was based on the 1897 Edmund Rostand stage play.

Songs by Bryce Dessner. Aaron Dessner, Matt Berninger

Premier 2021
UK cinema release / DVD 2022

MAIN CAST

Peter Dinklage- Cyrano
Haley Bennett- Roxanne
Kelvin Harrison Jr – Christian de Neuvilette.
Ben Mendelsohn – Duc de Guiche
Anjana Vasan – Sister Claire
Monica Dolan – Marie
Mark Benton – Montfleury
Richard McCabe- priest
Bashir Salahuddin – Le Bret

Now out on DVD, which is at a lower price than Amazon Prime viewing. This yar strange things are happening with releases. When Licorice Pizza appeared, you could get the blu-ray, but not the DVD. With Cyrano you can get the DVD, but the blu-ray is only an expensive import. Never mind, I divide films into four groups. 1) Get the 24K UHD 2) Get the Blu-ray 3) Get the DVD 4) Stream it. This one hovers between 3 and 4.

We saw the trailer in the cinema and it looked wonderful … huge, epic. Everyone loved Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones. What could go wrong? Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett were in the stage musical, so reprising acclaimed performances.

You know the story. Roxannne is pursued by the foppish Duc de Guiche, who takes her to the theatre. She sees handsome Christian de Neuvilette and they instantly fall for each other. Montfleury, the lead actor in the play is an old ham and is insulted by Cyrano from the audience. A man calls him a freak. They duel. Cyrano is the greatest swordsman in France. That’s that.

Cyrano adores Roxanne who he has known since childhood, and she likes him, but he has a physical flaw – not the normal 12′ nose, but his stature. Roxanne falls for Christian who is handsome but thick. So Cyrano writes his love letters which causes Roxanne to fall in love with Christian. The dastardly Duc has both Christian and Cyrano sent off to war, where Cyrano writes letters daily for Christian (and fails to shave). The ending is sad. That’ll do.

We hadn’t even realized it was based on a stage musical from the trailer. Anyway, it was nominated for all the Awards. Peter Dinklage received several nominations for Best Actor. The front of the DVD boasts 5 star reviews from The Times and The Sun, at opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum … but both owned by Murdoch. Did he have money in it?

My opinion. It’s nowhere near as epic in scale as the trailer would suggest. Erica Schmidt and Peter Dinkage are married. All three music writers play in the American band, The National. It’s hard to assess any musical when you’re totally unfamiliar with every song on it, but from first hearing we have lyrics meandering around in search of a tune.Most musicals have that issue, but I’m strongly against lyrics carrying plot. I prefer dialogue and narrative on one hand and songs can then reflect on the story, but should not be telling the story. Usually musicals can get away with it if half the songs have memorable tunes, but here I think only one was a memorable tune.

You try singing:

The ink on the page makes me nervous.

Dinklage can sing in a gruff way, but he’s no Leonard Cohen, though he’s far better than Lee Marvin or Telly Savalas, not that autotune was available to them. Haley Bennett and Kelvin Harrison Jnr both sing well too.

In contrast, instrumental music runs nearly all the way through in a minimalist fluttering style, and continues beneath dialogue, and is extremely good.

The dialogue mixes mock olden days with modern American, and really you either have dialogue along the lines of:

And I my heart will lead.

or

Is this OK with you, my love?

The two sit together most uncomfortably.

We thought it disappointing. All the actors put in very good performances, Dinklage as ever emotes superbly. The direction is smooth and confident, it all looks good, but to me the words must have been a slog, both as lyrics in the songs and in the dialogue.