SAN ANTONIO — It’s either perfectly ironic or perfectly appropriate that in Joe Wright’s “Cyrano” – a story where written word is a way into the heart – it’s the landscapes of vocal personality that give this ravishing movie its soul.
Take Peter Dinklage’s brassy timbre, heroically contrasting Haley Bennett’s misty-sweet musings as sparks fly. Take Ben Mendelsohn’s rugged sneers as the cruel De Guiche, a most pure expression of his vanity and not knowing love from possession. And take Kelvin Harrison Jr.’s eager shouts, which are almost always getting the better of his love-stricken Christian, the dashing young soldier who otherwise can’t find a word to say when he finally meets the woman who has his heart. For all the words you can use to describe “Cyrano” – energetic, funny, grand, melodramatic, tragic – muted is not one of them.
And how lucky we are. The spectrum of vocal geography encompassed by Wright’s performers breathes passionate life into “Cyrano,” not only because it’s Hollywood’s first full-blown musical take on the classic romance, but because the melodies and monologues swirl into and around each other during its most immensely moving sequences—embracing each other in a way its primary lovers aren’t destined to. Heartfelt? That’s doing the English director and his film a disservice. “Cyrano” is brimming with the same total humility that can turn the body’s (and cinema’s) most vital organ into its most self-destructive, and it says plenty that the movie often strains to sustain the power of its feverish highs.
The heart may as well be the film’s subject, its toils filtered through characters as well as the rich sense of place which Wright has continuously fostered over his filmmaking career. A hazy and worn-down 17th-century France is where “Cyrano” unfolds, this version taking specific cues from the 2019 stage play written by Erica Schmidt (who also penned this screenplay).
But narrative foundations remain intact: Cyrano and Roxanne are lifelong friends, and though Dinklage’s capable and poetic military leader desperately hopes for more from their relationship, he agrees to help young Christian win her heart by writing romantic letters. All the while, the messages become Cyrano’s way of communicating to Roxanne what he can never say in person, despite it being Christian’s signature at the bottom.
“Cyrano” remains an elemental sort of love story, to be sure, the kind by which modern iterations can be forged (and have; check out Netflix’s “The Half of It”). Which may be the idea behind the movie’s most novel aspect: the enlistment of moody slow-rock group The National to create original songs for the story, imbuing the plot with a moodiness that largely syncs up with Wright’s melancholy. The real grace lies with Matt Berninger and Carin Besser’s lyrics, which are, at their best, as elemental as the story they’re giving literal new voice to; Dinklage’s rendition of “Madly” is as hopeful as it is despairing, while Bennett’s “I Need More” plays like a rumbling storm of emotional dissatisfaction.
The timing of the film’s release may have something to say about how love’s tunes tend to ring out most clearly at a distance in “Cyrano,” but so does Wright, whose movies are less inclined towards villains than navigating the interiority of his characters. Thus do his romances feel most devastating when external forces interrupt a sure thing, and “Cyrano’s” grip on our sympathies is indeed strongest when it has transformed fully and briefly into a war picture, into a tale of romantic reckoning set against the musty atmosphere of impending cataclysm. And when Christian delivers a reprise of the movie’s anthem, that magical only-in-the-movies effect of young love turning a sparring regiment into a vortex of colorful robes has to be seen to be believed.
If scenes like these fail to fully detach from a sense of theatricality – and “Cyrano” does feel a bit less spontaneous and a bit too rehearsed at times – perhaps it’s only because there are words and speeches and confessions we’ve spent our entire lives rehearsing, even if we never know who we’re quite rehearsing for or if we’ll ever get a shot at the real thing. Dinklage’s MVP-level performance embraces that aspect of the material wholeheartedly, in what is by far his most robust role since his “Game of Thrones” days. His participation in the stage version aside, the casting of Dinklage – who in January criticized Disney’s upcoming “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” remake – in a movie about the thorniness of assumptions does much to sharpen the personal edge of a film that already wears its heart on its delicately stitched-together sleeve.
It also helps that Dinklage is a genuine force of nature here, giving a performance that is by turns intelligent, controlled and endlessly sympathetic. There are moments when it feels like his Cyrano is the only person who’s truly known heartbreak.
Perhaps it’s because Wright managed to shoot “Cyrano” in the Sicilian city of Noto during the pandemic that the movie finds him at his most artistically liberated. The emotions are always threatening to flare wildly, but even when they occasionally do it only feels right for this film—one so impossibly earnest that it sometimes feels unearthed from another time. While the constant effort of tonal taming results in a moment of narrative drag here and there, I can only imagine him smiling while loosening his clutch on the reins.
The primary challenge in making a movie like “Cyrano” – and particularly in making a movie like “Cyrano” today – is ensuring that there’s enough room for its heart to swell without brushing against sheepishness. But isn’t that the challenge Wright has embraced his entire career, ever since Mr. Darcy asked for a dance with Elizabeth Bennett in his “Pride & Prejudice”? The filmmaker understands the thrill of romantic movies which source their lifeblood from risk, and so take risks he does. “Cyrano” is not Wright’s best movie, but in that regard it may well be his biggest accomplishment.
"Cyrano" is rated PG-13 for some strong violence, thematic and suggestive material, and brief language. It opens in San Antonio theaters Friday.
Starring: Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ben Mendelsohn
Directed by Joe Wright
2022
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