The SINGING CYRANO springs a big surprise
Ah, Cyrano, many of you will be thinking, we know that one. It’s about the poor chap who’s in love with a pretty girl called Roxanne but doesn’t stand a chance because of his absolutely humungous nose. Wasn’t Steve Martin in it? Or was it Gerard Dépardieu?
And yes, you would be correct on both counts. French screen legend Dépardieu did a version of Edmond Rostand’s 19th Century play in 1990, while veteran US comedian Martin muddied the waters by updating it to the American present day – or at least the 1980s – and calling it Roxanne.
Now along comes a new version from acclaimed British director Joe Wright, best known for Atonement, Pride And Prejudice, Darkest Hour and Anna Karenina. I enjoyed Wright’s interpretation very much, although it does require a health warning – two, in fact.
First is that no oversized proboscis features in the film whatsover.
Instead, the physical obstacle that lies in the way of the enduring love that soldier and poet Cyrano de Bergerac has for his crush, Roxanne, is his lack of height.
As this Cyrano indelicately puts it, ‘The world will never accept a midget and a tall, beautiful woman’.
Second health warning is that it’s, er… a musical. Yes, that fact came as a surprise to me too.
A familiar mix of French period
setting and music inevitably calls to mind the likes of Moulin Rouge! and Les Misérables.
But this Cyrano stands comparison with both, helped by a powerful and poignant central performance from Game Of Thrones star Peter Dinklage, and a generous helping of charm from Swallow star Haley
Bennett as Roxanne. The songs, which hail from a new 2018 musical version, are a bit of an acquired taste but they grew on me, and the Shakespearean triangle of confusion, which sees Roxanne falling in love with the handsome Christian but only because his love letters are being secretly written by the eloquent Cyrano, shines through. Despite a gloriously debauched performance from Ben Mendelsohn as the evil Duc de Guiche and Bafta-nominated good looks, Cyrano still won’t be for everyone but, nevertheless, it comes highly recommended.
As does The Duke, which not only finally arrives in cinemas some 18 months after its premiere at the 2020 Venice Film Festival but comes tinged with sadness following the sudden death of its much admired and extremely popular South African director, Roger Michell – best known for My Cousin Rachel and Notting Hill – last September, aged just 65.
But as epitaphs go, this is a gently lovely one, notable for its well-polished screenplay, some very funny lines and the sight of the wonderful Helen Mirren resplendent in shabby housecoat and baggy, Nora Batty-style stockings.
The film retells a long-forgotten moment from modern British history when, in 1961, an irritating bolshie know-all from the north of England called Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) stole Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery. Even back then it was worth £140,000.
But Bunton didn’t steal the painting for his own financial
gain, he purloined it merely to make a point. The money the Conservative government of the time had just spent on saving the portrait for the nation could have been used for better things, the man from Newcastle believed, such as his personal campaign for free TV licences for the elderly and wounded war veterans.
Broadbent and Mirren, who plays Bunton’s long-suffering wife, are both terrific, but there are lovely supporting performances
‘First health warning: there is no oversized proboscis in this film whatsoever ’
‘Helen Mirren, resplendent in shabby housecoat and baggy stockings’
across the board. The result is warm-hearted, funny and unexpectedly touching, too.
At the other end of the movie spectrum entirely is the shockingly poor Studio 666.
An opening moment that sees a young woman being bludgeoned to death by an unseen killer is just the first of many, many misjudgments in this blood-spattered and hideously self-indulgent horrorspoof from the rock group Foo Fighters, and their charismatic leader, Dave Grohl.
It is only February but Studio 666 has got to be a candidate for one of the worst films we’ll see all year.
And just like one of Foo Fighters’ live sets, it’s interminable as well.