Plot Summary – Based on the autobiographical musical by playwright Jonathan Larson. It’s the story of an aspiring composer in New York City who is worried he made the wrong career choice, whilst navigating the pressures of love and friendship.

★★★★ 

Watched on 23 Nov 2021

The opening credits rolled and there was a clip from the actors of Rent thanking Johnathan Larson and as someone who liked to go into films knowing absolutely nothing, I clenched my jaw in nervous anticipation. I’m not a big fan of Rent and I genuinely thought that this film was going to be bad. I’m really glad that I was proved wrong. I’ll get this out of the way, I’m a huge Hamilton fan. Like obsessed-levels when the Disney+ recording of the show came out, I was the kind of person whose Spotify Wrapped #1 album was the Hamilton soundtrack so unlike a lot of people, I’m actually a huge fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s music. But I was still sceptical about him as a director cause I hadn’t seen anything yet and the Instagram ads were so cringey. This film is helmed pretty much perfectly, the direction is so crisp and he manages to maintain this breakneck pace throughout the runtime of the film. Every scene has a purpose and nothing feels out of place. I’m slowly coming to realize that Andrew Garfield is one of the most important actors in his generation because he never hesitates to play different kind of characters. While people like Tom Holland and Timothee have almost been typecast at this point to play the same default template of a character, Garfield never fails to impress with his versatility. This film is no different, where he reveals to us that he actually had a brilliant, angelic voice that he was just hiding from us for no reason. He ensures that every song in this film is a banger and I was just floored by his vocal ability. That’s not the only thing impressive about his performance though because he not only manages to sing brilliantly but also absolutely knock this performance out of the park. He plays the characters with so much pep and vibrance that you really sympathize with this character and feel for him. My only problem with the film comes from the writing and I feel like that’s mainly a product of adapting a stageplay to a screenplay because sometimes the lines between diagetic and non-diagetic music are blurred or the justification for setpieces come off as a bit weak or there’s just random exposition in dialogue that makes it seem unnatural at times. These flaws can be largely ignored and this film is an overall enjoyable experience with some great music and an Oscar-nomination-worthy performance from Andrew Garfield.