Rent (film)

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

On Christmas Eve 1989, aspiring filmmaker Mark Cohen and his roommate, Roger Davis, learn that the rent previously waived by their old friend and now landlord, Benjamin "Benny" Coffin III, is due. After meeting with Benny, who intends to evict the homeless population of a nearby lot and build a cyber studio, Mark and Roger reject his offer of free rent if they get Maureen, Mark's ex-girlfriend, to cancel her protest against his plans. Their former room mate, Tom Collins, is mugged and meets street drummer and drag queen Angel, with whom he bonds over their HIV-positive status. Also HIV-positive from past drug addiction, Roger attempts to compose one last great song before he dies. His neighbor, Mimi, an erotic dancer and heroin addict, tries to convince him to do heroin together despite also being HIV-positive.

On Christmas Day, Mark and Roger are visited by Collins and Angel, who invite them to a meeting of an AIDS support group, Life Support. Roger turns them down but Mark goes to film the meeting for a documentary he's making about people living with HIV/AIDS. Mimi again visits Roger, whose ex-girlfriend died by suicide after discovering she and Roger were HIV-positive, rebukes her advances. The next day Roger attends a Life Support meeting with Mark and Collins, who reveals is falling in love with Angel. Mark is asked to fix Maureen's sound equipment for her protest, where he meets her new girlfriend Joanne, with whom he discusses Maureen's promiscuity. Maureen performs a protest song that calls out Benny for trying to shut down the homeless' tent city; Benny alerts the police to the protest, whose presence sees the protest escalate into a riot. Mark films the riot and later sells the footage to the local news station, where eventually finds a job, while Roger and Mimi admit their feelings for each other and their shared HIV status.

On New Year's Day, the group find the door of the apartment padlocked, though Angel breaks the lock with a garbage can. Benny is persuaded by Mimi, his ex-girlfriend, to give them the apartment back. Over the next year, Maureen proposes to Joanne, who ends their relationship after Maureen flirts with another women at their engagement party; Mimi's excessive drug use angers Roger, who eventually ends their relationship; and Angel's illness worsens and he eventually dies. After his funeral on Halloween, the group argue bitterly and all go their separate ways, though Maureen and Joanne reconcile. Roger leaves New York for Santa Fe, New Mexico, while Mark quits his job to focus on making the documentary.

On Christmas Eve 1990, Mark and Roger reunite with Collins, who has reprogrammed an ATM to dispense cash when someone inputs the code: A-N-G-E-L. Joanne and Maureen find Mimi on the streets, near death; she and Roger reconcile and he sings the song he has written over the past year. Mimi seemingly dies but awakens, saying that she was heading into the light, but Angel told her to go back. As Mark's documentary is shown for the first time, the group reaffirms to one another that there is "no day but today".

• Anthony Rapp as Mark Cohen, a struggling Jewish filmmaker and Roger's roommate. He was dumped by Maureen for Joanne.
• Adam Pascal as Roger Davis, an HIV-positive ex-addict rock musician; Mimi's love interest.
• Rosario Dawson as Mimi Marquez, an HIV-positive heroin addict and stripper; Roger's love interest.^[a]
• Jesse L. Martin as Thomas B. "Tom" Collins, an anarchist and gay philosophy professor with AIDS; former roommate of Maureen, Roger, Mark, and Benny; Angel's love interest.
• Wilson Jermaine Heredia as Angel Dumott Schunard, a drag queen and street musician who is suffering from AIDS; Collins' love interest.^[2]
• Idina Menzel as Maureen Johnson, a bisexual performance artist and Joanne's girlfriend; Mark's ex-girlfriend.
• Tracie Thoms as Joanne Jefferson, a lesbian Harvard-graduate lawyer and Maureen's love interest.^[b]
• Taye Diggs as Benjamin "Benny" Coffin, III, landlord of the building in which Mark, Roger, and Mimi live and ex-roommate of Collins, Roger, Maureen, and Mark.

Notes

In addition to four deleted scenes, the DVD release of the film includes an alternate ending, showing all the main characters (including Benny, who was not present in the other ending) except Angel standing in the positions where they were during the "Seasons of Love" opening, all standing in a line of spotlights, with Angel's spot empty. Later in the scene, she enters from the side and walks down the line to take her place, stopping as she passes Collins to take his hand for a moment. Although this tableau is used in the finale of the musical, it was dropped from the film for fear that audiences may have wondered why Angel had returned or why the characters were lined up on stage again. In the commentary, Chris Columbus adds that he "didn't want audiences to think that everything was okay and Angel was alive again."

• "Goodbye Love" was filmed in its entirety, but the second half was cut from the film because Columbus considered it somewhat of an emotional overload, as he states on the DVD's commentary track.
• The film leaves ambiguous the death of Roger's girlfriend April, who dies before Rent begins. In the film, she is seen reading a doctor's report that she is HIV positive; it is stated that she has died, but nothing more is said. In the stage version, Mark explicitly states that April ended her life by slitting her wrists in the bathroom, and Roger found out about his HIV status in the suicide note. Chris Columbus states in the DVD commentary that a scene featuring April lying in the bathtub with her wrists slit was filmed, but cut because he thought it would be "too much".

Rent: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album to the 2005 film of the same name. The two-disc soundtrack, containing 28 tracks, was originally packaged in eight different slipcovers, each featuring one of the eight most prominent characters in the film.

Track listing

1. "Seasons of Love" – Joanne, Collins, Mimi, Roger, Maureen, Mark, Angel & Benny
2. "Rent" – Mark, Roger, Collins, Mimi, Benny & Tenants
3. "You'll See" – Roger, Mark & Benny
4. "One Song Glory" – Roger
5. "Light My Candle" – Roger & Mimi
6. "Today 4 U" – Angel & Collins, & Mark
7. "Tango: Maureen" – Joanne & Mark
8. "Life Support" – Mark, Angel, Collins, Gordon, Steve, Paul, Ali, Pam, & Sue
9. "Out Tonight" – Mimi
10. "Another Day" – Roger, Mimi, Collins, Mark & Angel
11. "Will I?" – Roger, Angel, Collins, Mark, Gordon, Steve, Paul, Ali, Pam & Sue
12. "Santa Fe" – Angel, Collins, Roger & Mark
13. "I'll Cover You" – Angel & Collins
14. "Over The Moon" – Maureen
15. "La Vie Bohème" * – Cast of Rent
16. "I Should Tell You" – Roger & Mimi
17. "La Vie Bohème B" * – Cast of Rent
18. "Seasons of Love B" – Cast of Rent
19. "Take Me or Leave Me" – Maureen & Joanne
20. "Without You" – Mimi & Roger
21. "I'll Cover You (Reprise)" – Collins & Company
22. "Halloween" (Deleted Scene) – Mark
23. "Goodbye Love" * – Mimi, Roger, Benny, Maureen, Joanne, Mark & Collins
24. "What You Own" – Roger & Mark
25. "Finale A" – Mimi & Roger
26. "Your Eyes" – Roger
27. "Finale B* " – Cast of Rent
28. "Love Heals" (Deleted Scene) – Cast of Rent

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 47% of 175 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Fans of the stage musical may forgive Rent its flaws, but weak direction, inescapable staginess and an irritating faux-boho pretension prevent the film from connecting on screen."^[4] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 53 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[5]

Film critic Roger Ebert praised the film's performances but criticized its story, writing that he did not believe the film works on its own without "reference to the theatrical version."^[6] David Rooney of Variety praised the performances of Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, and Jesse L. Martin, but criticized the film's decision to enlist most of the show's original cast, writing that the choice raises questions as to why these people, "some of them clearly pushing 40", are still "floundering in artsy aimlessness."^[7]

Box office

Rent grossed $29.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $2.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $31.7 million, against a budget of $40 million.^[8]

• List of Christmas films