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Rent
Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment


7.4

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 162 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving drugs and sexuality, and for some strong language

Starring Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, and Tracie Thoms

Based on Puccini's classic opera La Boheme, Jonathan Larson's revolutionary rock opera Rent tells the story of a group of bohemians struggling to live and pay their rent in the gritty background of New York's East Village. "Measuring their loves in love," these starving artists strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic. (Sony)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Musical \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Steve Chbosky Jonathan Larson (musical book music and lyrics)
DIRECTED BY:	Chris Columbus
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: February 21, 2006 Theatrical: November 23, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	135 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

One of the best film musicals in years -- exuberant, sexy and life affirming in equal measure.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Columbus is a member of the '80s generation and he gives the play authenticity, the respect of a classic, an epic visual scope and a sensibility that's blissfully free of any generational self-pity. It seems to be the movie he was born to make, and he serves it well.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie is literally a series of showstoppers, unified by the impulse to turn life, at its scruffiest, into theater - into a rhapsody of the everyday.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

But aside from a few overblown production numbers, Columbus respects the show's smaller scale, and the property itself is a knockout, with great tunes and engaging portraits of East Village bohemians in the AIDS-ravaged late 80s.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Columbus' schizoid approach works more often than not.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Rent isn't nearly as transporting a film as the Oscar-winning adaptation of "Chicago," but its energies and passions compensate for a lot of its deficiencies.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

If you fell in love with the big-hearted sentimentality of Rent when you saw it onstage, the film version will remind you why. If you think Jonathan Larson's musical is ponderous agitprop, the movie won't change your view.

Miami Herald Christine Dolen

Now a vastly larger audience has the chance to experience the masterwork of a prodigiously talented man who died far too young.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It's a pretty good version of a pretty great stage phenomenon.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Often dramatically jumbled and musically muddled - but every time the film seemed ready to tip into awfulness, the sneer on my lips was trumped by the lump in my throat.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Now that it is at last on screen, my reaction is ... what's all the fuss?

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Rent, for all its good intentions and sensitivity, is easy to forget but easy to forgive. The music and direction feel generic but the cast deserves credit for squeezing every possible drop of emotion out of the material.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

As a conventional drama, Rent would be a pretty corny soap opera. As filmed theater, it's only slightly more convincing. The saving graces - and there are many - are Larson's original songs and the comfortable fit of its ensemble cast.

TV Guide Angel Cohn

While most of the show's scenes work well cinematically, some are laughably miscalculated. Rock-video aesthetics and overamplification swamp "Glory" and "What You Own" while also robbing other sequences of their depth.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Chris Columbus' relatively faithful and intermittently affecting adaptation boasts the boisterous vitality of its performers, particularly Jesse L. Martin and Wilson Jermaine Heredia as lovers Tom and Angel.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

On film, Rent is the sound of one hand clapping.

Premiere Peter Debruge

Considering how much new additions Rosario Dawson (as Mimi) and Tracie Thoms (as Joanne) bring to the film, it's a shame Columbus didn't introduce more changes.

Variety David Rooney

Director Chris Columbus has pasted the grungy "La Boheme" update onto film with slavish respect for the original material but a shortage of stylistic imagination and raw emotions.

Village Voice Jorge Morales

Instead of bringing a universal love story to the living present, the film traps it in a frozen past like a prehistoric bug in amber, as removed from moviegoers' experience as a dusty diorama at the American Museum of Natural History.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Yes, Rent is the movie about AIDS, heroin addiction, homosexuality, strippers, marijuana, cross-dressing, and bisexuality audiences can take their grandparents to go see safe in the knowledge that any lingering trace of danger or authenticity has been carefully removed by director/co-writer Chris Columbus.

USA Today Mike Clark

With heavy HIV subtext and a couple of actors who have scored in other films, this La Bohème spinoff about fatal illness, drug addiction and eviction ought to be less of a slog than it is.

Washington Post Nelson Pressley

Onstage, Rent is a series of power surges, but in the movie the songs leave you flat.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The screen version's Drama Club dorkiness is going to ruin the Rent brand of alleged downtown cool for everyone. If anything can re-shevel the disheveled multitudes of Alphabet City and chase the hipsters into pleated khakis and sweater sets, it's this film.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

It's pedestrian.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

I wasn't sure a movie musical could be worse than last year's styrofoam-and-gilt swan-boat travesty "Phantom of the Opera," but I'm afraid Rent proves me wrong.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Mediocre and recommended only to those who can claim a familiarity with the play.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Despite the grating, workmanlike direction of Chris Columbus (he's no Robert Wise, and Rent is nobody's idea of "West Side Story"), this boisterous adaptation is both a vivacious, wiseacre musical and an inarguable morality lesson: Love is all you need. Oh, and rent, of course.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

If the great movie musicals are the ones that transport us to some heady superreality, the only place Rent takes us to is the Nederlander Theatre.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

In the movie, the unconverted will hold their ears as the banal tunes blare out in multichannel sound. And they'll wince as the camera closes in on every heart-tugging moment.

Slate David Edelstein

I found it tiresomely undramatic, even saccharine. Not to mention monotonous.

Empire Angie Errigo

Cards on the table: rock operas pretty much suck except for "Tommy."

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Heart-breakingly awful -- slow, lugubrious, and misconceived to the point of baffling amateurism.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Rent is commodified faux bohemia on a platter, eliciting the same kind of numbing soul-sadness as children's beauty pageants, tiny dogs in expensive boots, Mahatma Gandhi in Apple ads.

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

Rent plays as a very long joke with no punch line, an exercise in mawkish sentimentality that's embarrassing to watch. Kudos to the actors for truly committing to their roles, but with this material, it might have been better if they hadn't.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

To paraphrase the play's most famous song: how do you measure the lien against your soul when you're forced to sit through something as forcibly maudlin as Rent? I dunno, but 525,600 minutes is about how long this movie felt at times.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 162 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Ryan C. gave it a3:
Roger Ebert once said of "North": "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it." This quote expresses exactly how I feel about Rent. I do not think the film is abysmal in the traditional sense of the word. It isn't painful to watch, in that the direction or acting is horrible. Rather, this movie is infuriating and insulting because it tells the story of characters whose motto seems to be "Live life exactly how you want it, with no regards for the consequences" but expects us to feel bad for these characters when horrible things happen to them. It's schmaltzy and over-wrought.

Amanda B. gave it a7:
I'm a huge fan of the musical "Rent" and have been for years so of course I had to see it as a film. I loved that they used several members of the original cast but was disappointed by the amount of changes that were made. I guess I should have been expecting that more.

Rubes gave it a7:
I cry because they took Jonathan Larson Magnum Opus and turned it into just simply a bad movie. There's not much that I can say but if you truly want to see this musical and understand why it's so good, go see it live, I can't think of anything else that will move you more to stand up and applaud.

Jasmine M. gave it a10:
Rent is an inprirational movie. Based on Jonathon Larson's "baby" as he calls it, I believe this movie can allow people to feel better on whatever it is that they believe in. It can give them the ease to let them be whoever they are: homosexual or with an illness people don't even want to begin to imagine. I give this a definite 10.

Winkonde J. gave it a10:
Rent is the kind of film that comes around and changes lives. I thought it was wonderfully done. I have seen the musical on Broadway and all though some parts don't compare, it was still a great movie. If you didn't get anything out of Rent, you don't know what true beauty is.

Charlie N. gave it a5:
Corny, cliched, and annoying. Why don't some of those characters just get a day job?

Eddy gave it a10:
This was the most spectacular film my eyes have ever even dreamed of watching. I truly believe this film has changed my aspect of life. This movie was and still is my favorite movie of all time. I am not going to lie, I cried..... alot, and Anthony Rapp's preformance was flawless. He is now my most favorite actor. I have not yet seen it on brodway, but mark my words..... I WILL!!!!!

Rent Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Rent
Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment