rent open full throttle with the cast loudly sing to show u that they be intensely angry about something and though just what they be angry about or why they feel compel to put it into song be never make clear . indeed and a the film meander along for over two hour and it never really go anywhere beyond the usual contrive plot complication about lover break up and get back together . it be obviously go for a slice of life quality and try to recreate a time and a place and in this case aid era new york and circa 1990. the multi award win play be base on puccini opera la boheme and but the film rather apparently seek inspiration from the screen version of hair . like hair and rent feature a rambling plot that only provide an excuse for the song while but unlike milos foreman underrate classic and rent be saddle with rather mundane music and curse with lackluster stag . tony award and a pulitzer prize notwithstanding and rent drone from one barely memorable song to the next and try to be soulfully operatic but reveal it great weakness represent it faux operetta can not conceal that it be an utterly trivial story about utterly trivial people . hair have the added advantage of be about an era with distinction while the late 1960s be utterly unique in style and attitude and relevancy . other than take place at the heart of the aid epidemic and there really isn not anything that lend distinction to the milieu that rent desperately try to document while 1990 be not that much different from and say and 1975 and or for that matter 2005. rent have the sort of timeless banality that be purposely build into tv sitcom so that they can play eternally in rerun while if the dialogue do not mention what year it take place and it would be difficult to tell . it be certainly difficult to care . the cast repeatedly break into one song or another that pointedly celebrate nonconformity and a if such a thing be a unique and original concept . unfortunately and so much of what the film embrace a be bohemian and seem less shockingly radical than just plain shallow and trendy . what be set forth a originality come off a cliché and warm over beatnik and or or hippie counterculture posturing . rather than be universal in nature and the film call for freethinking seem strangely generic . if anything and rent seem gear to do little more than to romanticize poverty and failure . a good example be the character of mark cohen and a wannabe filmmaker play by anthony rapp . mark be curse with a caring and middle class family and be obviously slum while the great tragedy he suffer during the course of the story be that he land a high pay job with a future . throughout the movie and he be constantly film some sort of vague documentary about his own life and which prompt him to prattle on about his artistic integrity . to this end he utilize an old fashion and hand crank camera and eschew opportunity to use state of the art equipment and let alone get money to finance his project . the resulting film prof to be little more than an amateurish home movie . he be not an artist while he a kid playing with a toy . rent be an ambitious effort about people without ambition and merely kid at play . the role be tailor make to safely conform to pc standard of diversity while a carefully balance quota of black and white and jew and latino and straight and gay and aid sufferer and addict and yuppie scum and the now almost mandatory free spirit cross dresser . but it be the type of diversity that be only skin deep while none of the character stand out a unique individual while they be diverse for political correctness sake . the character come together to keep their crumbling tenement building from be tear down and apparently so the character themselves do not have to actually get on with their inert life . rent be a contradictory story that celebrate nonconformity through character who conform to their common fear of change and growth . the film milquetoast radicalism extend to it production and which be no more bold or original than it call for nonconformity . director chris columbus make little effort to experiment in stag or edit the musical number while when he isn not obviously copy a chorus line or hair and columbus give u an endless array of static shot of character stand and sing while so much so that the rare inventive moment and such a rapp and tracie thoms nicely do the maureen tango and seem strangely out of place . have the film brush aside it lame story and be more of a musical revue of showstopper and ( like hair and or chicago and or godspell or anything by busby berkeley or astaire and rodgers ) then the superficiality of the material would be irrelevant . rent strives to be neither original nor traditional and end up not be much of anything .