Cyrano

Movie: Cyrano

Nominated for: Best Costume Design

How I watched: Laemmle

When I fell asleep: During one cold, wintry song

When it had me: Peter Dinklage

When it lost me: Frequently

What I have to say:

First off, can I just say that the parking garage I used was real sketchy and ended up charging me $15 for the two hours I was there and I will never think of this movie without that resentment creeping into my heart.

Secondly, this is a musical?? Oh! Ok. I've seen trailers for it and they successfully hid that from me. Is that something you generally want to hide from your audience? Or maybe is it good for people to know what they are getting into? Just curious.

Peter Dinklage is a great actor and not as great of a singer. I thought of Russell Crowe in Les Mis. No one let it affect that movie's success, but this one isn't doing as well. The core story between Roxanne and Cyrano is believable and sweet, charming and heartbreaking. The rest is hard to follow and clunky with those songs that don't function so much as songs as musical exposition and revelation. 

The song that landed best was "I want More" from Roxanne, pinpointing the emotional depth that women crave and has historically been so difficult for men to provide. Emotional depth has not been a celebrated hallmark of masculinity so it makes sense that it can more easily be found in a man who already finds himself an outlier to any traditional notion of "being a man."

As I said above, I did doze during a protracted song about war, in winter. (I recall falling asleep during a similar situation in Les Mis, as well.) This part of the movie was bereft of the connection and lift of Cyrano and Roxanne and so, for me, folded like a house of cards. 

Peter Dinklage is a fantastic actor and to see this story told with someone's real stature as the bar to love and self acceptance, rather then a comical prosthetic nose, is much more vulnerable and tragic. Society has told Cyrano so loudly and so often that he isn't even a real man that his own doubts are what keep him from feeling free enough to express his love. This lifts it out of comedy and sheds light on how the cruelty of the world stunts people's growth as humans. All of this is great for the story but unfortunately still got lost deep inside a clumsy musical.