Cyrano (2021, Peter Dinklage Sings!)

[Small Man Big Horse]

This is Joe Wright's adaptation of the stage musical based on the famous French tale about how the hot and sexy Roxanne (Haley Bennett) fancies a soldier who can't speak proper, so he has poet Cyrano (Peter Dinklage) write letters and speak for him in general. I quite enjoyed it because the songs are (unintentionally) amusing and Bennett sounds a fair bit like Kate Bush, and Dinklage has a nice enough voice, while it's beautifully shot and the performances are great. But christ, the dialogue is clunky as hell, and it's really glaring given that Cyrano's supposedly an astonishing writer when in fact all of his speeches and songs are cliched filled nonsense, plus while the choreography's often impressive occasionally it's guilty of looking like a cross between an eighties pop video and an eighties soft porn video. If you're a fan of overblown musicals than it'd probably be a 7.2/10, but I could easily understand why someone might rate it 2/10.

[Noodle Lizard]

I saw a trailer for it, couldn't imagine anything more boring. But I probably will watch it, because why not.

I feel as though Joe Wright got very lucky once with Atonement, and even that's not great (with a few exceptional scenes).

[Small Man Big Horse]

I saw a trailer for it, couldn't imagine anything more boring. But I probably will watch it, because why not.

I feel as though Joe Wright got very lucky once with Atonement, and even that's not great (with a few exceptional scenes).

It's the first time I've seen anything by him and though he's clearly adept with a camera, and there's a few really great shots, I've no interest in anything else he's done and wasn't going to watch this until I found out it was a musical.

[The Mollusk]

By sheer coincidence I watched the 1990 "Cyrano de Bergerac" very recently without knowing this new version was coming out. It's fucking ace, I massively recommend it to anyone otherwise unfamiliar with the tale. Depardieu plays the lead role masterfully, and even though it's admittedly a bit of a chore trying to read the English subtitles whilst also staying abreast of the French rhyming prose which is spoken for the entire film, it's a hugely rewarding investment. Incredible wordplay, briskly paced throughout and scarcely lets you catch a breather. I was hanging on every word.

[Small Man Big Horse]

By sheer coincidence I watched the 1990 "Cyrano de Bergerac" very recently without knowing this new version was coming out. It's fucking ace, I massively recommend it to anyone otherwise unfamiliar with the tale. Depardieu plays the lead role masterfully, and even though it's admittedly a bit of a chore trying to read the English subtitles whilst also staying abreast of the French rhyming prose which is spoken for the entire film, it's a hugely rewarding investment. Incredible wordplay, briskly paced throughout and scarcely lets you catch a breather. I was hanging on every word.

I'm pretty sure that was the first film I ever saw with subtitles and I loved it at the time, and I'm glad to hear it still stands up and should revisit it soon.