I utterly adored "Rent" when I was in high school, but I fear that, were I to revisit it, it would only remind me of how annoying I was back then. This might be a story that only a 16-year-old's earnestness could love.

It Seems to me that most of the folks who don't "get" Rent - Don't want to "get" Rent. Yes, it's young, awkward, overly earnest, hopelessly optimistic and still feels like a work in progress. That, however, is the point. Young life IS YOUNG, awkard, often overly earnest, hopelessly optimistic and, unless cut short, is a work in progress, not polished or finished or settled.

Yeah - I've never really liked the end - I would have preferred a singing "ghost" Mimi to drive home the point of wasted time. Although that would have been more faithful to the source material (la boheme), one would have expect Nate Fisher to magically appear as well (NARM! - The Musical!). Still, this was before protease inhibitors and the finale does seem to have an eerie preminition of the "Lazarus syndrome" that was to follow in the 90's for so many HIV Positive persons (That's a subject I want to see dealt with on film, by the way).

My main point, however, is that I've detected a common thread of condescension running through so many of the negative things written so far. Something along the lines of - "who'd want to watch THOSE people?" Please - if that's how you feel, don't bother.

No Day But Today

I tell my friends that if Stephanie Zacharek gives a good review to a mass-appeal movie, that's saying something. You can almost count on her finding reasons to loathe movies like this and love the indies that never actually make it to a "theater near you."

I could second (and third, and fourth) the annoyance expressed by those who have already pointed out her blatant mis-quoting of lyrics, and use it to discredit the entire review (maybe she was watching TV on her iPod during that song).

Instead I'll just say that I think she missed the point. Idealism, naivete, and almost laughably hopeful lyrics are what Rent is all about. Love or hate it, at least understand it.

She never saw the play, hates the music, hates the lyrics (as she misunderstands them). Imagine how enthralled I am by her opinion of the film.

Rent is a test of your heart. If you can watch the plight of Mimi, the struggles of poverty, of trying to find meaning in life, the love between Tom and Angel, the loss of Angel, the fear of the loss of dignity, and the joy of living with (not dying from) disease and NOT shed a tear, you and the Tinman have a journey ahead of you.

...by not seeing the play. I saw Rent before it got to Broadway, and it was stupid, self-congratulatory tripe with some of the most amazingly bad music I've ever heard. (It's amusing that some of the previous letter writers have taken Zacharek to task for misquoting the lyrics, as if the utterly unmusical and empty-headed ""When you're living in America at the end of the millenium, you are what you own" is something to be proud of.)

The only way Chris Columbus could have made it worse, which he apparently did, is by adding another layer of sentimental falsity, like having Ashlee Simpson sing a song by Linda Perry.

I usually appreciate Ms. Zacharek's reviews even when I don't agree with them. I think she's missing the point this time. Zacharek starts by setting the stage for Rent, the early 90's, but then ignores the importance of that context for the rest of her review. The play was subversive for its time. Maybe today, in the oh so progressive aughts, these ideas of inclusion seem quaint, but they were slightly radical then. They will also be seen as pretty radical in large areas of the nation today. Yes there are some cheesy lyrics, but that's a conceit of the genre. I admit I fear what Columbus did to the material, but unlike Ms. Zacharek, I'll hold off on that opinion until I see the film.

PS The complaint that Diggs is underutilized IS moronic and would never have been said if she understood the source material.