Well, the first 5 minutes gave me quite the surprise: this film is a MUSICAL. Honestly, I didn’t look up anything about the film before I saw it. I knew it was based on the Cyrano de Bergerac tale and starred Peter Dinklage. I don’t really dig on musicals. It’s just not my preferred way of conveying drama, comedy, romance, etc. This is VERY much how I felt for the 1st half of Cyrano. Very stagey and encapsulated by the musical theater-ness of it all. But, somewhere in the 3rd act, I found myself engaged and truly feeling. The story, the music, and definitely the ACTING were moving me. At that point I knew this would overall be positive and that I was enjoying.
Dinklage isn’t going to go on tour headlining the biggest music halls, but those times when he isn’t singing, oh how he commands the screen and rips beating emotion from the pages and beams it out, like an energy exploding from inside him. He is marvelous, both witty and vulnerable, but able to convey the range and the accordion to-and-fro of his passions. I can’t say that I was gripped in the same way by the tremendous Mendelsohn and the impressive in Swallow Haley Bennett.
This was a solid reimagining of the Cyrano story, specifically designed and written for Dinklage, and performs pretty well. Not all of the songs worked for me, despite being born of my beloved The National band members, but I would point out that “Wherever I Fall” was not only my favorite song and a fun injection of Glen Hansard, but was probably the moment when I fully felt tearfully onboard. The ending felt a tad abrupt but touching performances soothed any doubts.