Female Film Critics 24/375
Director Joe Wright‘s Cyrano is a feast for the eyes. The latest story is based loosely on the life of Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist from the 1600s. In 1897, the French poet Edmond Rostand published a play, Cyrano de Bergerac, also based in broad strokes on Cyrano’s life. Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and Wright’s version are both tragedies, with loss at every turn.
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It’s not about the nose! Director Joe Wright re-imagines Edmund Rostand’s 1897 poetic drama Cyrano de Bergerac about a swashbuckling poet/solider with self-esteem issues. In her musical adaptation of the French classic love story, Erika Schmidt discards the gigantic nose as an impediment and substitutes short stature. Cyrano is embodied by Peter Dinklage.
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Cyrano charms and surprises with songs, dances, and duels. Confirming, again, that revered stories attract, perhaps even need, updates, director Joe Wright’s reinterpretation of Cyrano both charms and surprises. Its unexpected tone and style, replete with songs, dances, and duels, features the amazingly versatile Peter Dinklage as the love-struck but insecure poet Cyrano de Bergerac longing for the beautiful Roxanne. He’s certain his height precludes any romantic success. Familiarity with Edmond Rostand’s legendary 1897 story may help viewers immerse themselves in this version, but the acting and action, the lavish art direction and superb staging (shot in Noto, Sicily) make this adaptation a triumph.
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Sometimes a film takes a second viewing to make you aware of how much it moves you. If you have a rather cynical view of romance, perhaps, “Cyrano” (2021) won’t be your cup of tea. Or you might find yourself humming one of the tunes from the soundtrack days later and realize this very romantic film has worked itself through your thorny defenses despite yourself. I confess I am in the latter camp.
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Cyrano, a musical adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s famous tragic romance, is as besotted with language as is its protagonist, a man enraptured with a woman he thinks won’t love him back. Besotted and enraptured might seem heady words nowadays, but heightened wordplay is the lingua franca of this film’s Paris of 1640, where people admire the cut of a barb as much as swordsmanship.
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