Cyrano (2022) Review

​By Pablo Lacalle Castillo

​
​It’s safe to say Edmond Rostand’s 1897 classic 'Cyrano de Bergerac' is a tale that continues to be attractive to viewers even today. This isn’t too surprising as Rostand’s play - about Cyrano, a valiant, charming, eloquent poet and warrior, sadly held back in his pursuit of his true love Roxanne by crippling insecurity due to his oversized nose - is as quintessential a tale of romance, bravery, fate and tragedy as there ever was.

Now in 2022, director Joe Wright has stepped into the ring to revive Cyrano, this time in the form of a musical helmed by Peter Dinklage. It’s a film I had been anticipating for quite some time: 'Cyrano de Bergerac' is one of my personal favourite pieces of literature, and any fan of 'Game of Thrones' (we don’t talk about the ending) would be aware of how well suited the superbly talented Dinklage is for the role.

The end result is something of a mixed bag, however. Cyrano is no calamitous disaster worthy of incurring the distaste its eponymous protagonist holds towards mediocre art, but it crucially blunders and falls short of the mark that could have propelled this rendition to the level of Les Miserables. That’s not to say there aren’t any positives of course. The cinematography is gorgeous, and the costume design and sets are stunningly elaborate and well-crafted. The rowdy, bustling streets of Paris, the crowded hubbub of the theatre and the gelid, barren peaks of the front line in the war between Spain and France all come alive beautifully. Any viewer familiar with the source material will also appreciate the attention to detail as well: the opening shot of the film hangs on a wooden puppet with an overlarge nose, a reference to Cyrano’s original appearance in the text, and look closely enough as Roxanne’s carriage travels through the streets and you’ll spot a puppet-show playing out the exact events of the balcony scene that occurs later in the movie.

It’s touches like these that are indicative of a genuine care and love to the source material, a welcome sight in an age of increasingly tired cash-grabs and ‘deconstructive’ projects seeking to cynically deride and vilify the past. And Cyrano’s main cast certainly pull their weight to add to the effort. Dinklage of course is the standout as Cyrano, who has clearly brought his experience as Tyrion Lannister to Cyrano’s acerbic taunts. His is an especially tragic Cyrano however.

As a dwarf rather than someone with an especially large nose, Cyrano’s condition shifts from a man plagued by an ultimately petty yet nonetheless deep-seated insecurity to someone with a genuinely serious physical condition, especially considering the historical context of the film and its bigoted, ableist views. Dinklage’s Cyrano suffers more than just the usual name-calling of his theatrical counterpart, with the vitriol heaped on him of a severity not usually seen in other adaptations. And though he is quick to acquit himself with his sword and intelligence, Dinklage masterfully communicates the heart-breaking frustration and fear of a man perceived as a freakish monster scared of the mockery his confession of love to Roxanne would incur.

Haley Bennet is also on top form as Roxanne, with seemingly effortless chemistry with Dinklage, a factor that saves the romance element of this film. It also helps that, in a musical, she is by far the most talented singer of the main trio, allowing her to add a touch of fiery passion to Roxanne often lacking in portrayals that cast her as more passive. Kelvin Harrison Jr is charismatic and charming as the well-meaning but simple Christian, who utilises Cyrano’s poetry to win Roxanne over, and Ben Mendelsohn is adequate as the villainous DeGuiche, despite his performance bordering on pantomime-levels of dastardliness at times.

With such a well-rounded cast overall, what lets Cyrano down is a bizarre mix of restraint and overindulgence. The decision to make it a musical is novel, but flounders with more disappointingly generic unmemorable songs than actual showstoppers (though thankfully, Dinklage does acquit himself well despite not having a background as a singer) and the film’s lavish flourishes do risk spilling over into self-indulgent and insubstantial territory at crucial moments.

Sometimes it works (a balletic scene of bakers making bread works well in conjunction with an earlier point Cyrano makes to his aspiring poet and baker friend about finding beauty in the familiar) and other times it becomes excruciatingly melodramatic (Roxanne mimicking achieving orgasm in a montage as she reads Christian/Cyrano’s letters is a painful three minutes to sit through). And as the characters spend so much time singing, Cyrano’s greatest strength - his words - become diluted. Dinklage is never truly allowed to recite Cyrano’s most stirring monologues and his Cyrano is oddly less verbose than he should be, with the heavy lifting done by song numbers slinging together rhymes awkwardly and buckling under the weight. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the film’s lacklustre ending. Cyrano’s final speech in the play, a brutally poignant and tragically triumphant reaffirmation of his character and a slap in the face to the doubters, naysayers and insecurities that followed him all of life, is cut entirely. Where we could have seen Dinklage roaring out Cyrano’s firebrand final words, the film defaults to the conventions of its genre treating us instead to yet another trite, saccharine duet.

Well-acted and well-crafted, 2022’s Cyrano decks itself with superficial frippery, but unfortunately never dares to sink its teeth deep into the flamboyant energy of its source material. It has its strengths but squanders them under the musical format. Cyrano has always been tragic, but this take burdens its eponymous protagonist with so much drama that we lose the bombast and cheek of his textual counterpart. Ironically, considering the play introduced the word to the English language, Wright’s Cyrano needs a little more panache.