Happy 125th anniversary Edmond Ronstad’s Cyrano de Bergerac! People love your play; it’s been adapted so many times it makes your tale feel as old as time at this point. 2021/2022 felt like a good time to reimagine the tale again. This Cyrano throws Peter Dinklage into the title role, and adds a little singing, and puts Joe Wright, play to movie adapter extraordinaire, behind the camera. The 2021 de Bergerac remix captures some of the magic of that 1897 play, but only in fits and starts.
Dinklage thankfully wasn’t outfitted with that crazy long nose as Cyrano: he’s just himself, a little person standing tallest in the land when it comes to wit, combat, etc. He pines for Roxanne (Haley Bennett), a longtime, beautiful female friend dancing around several suitors (including Ben Mendelsohn’s rich, powerful de Guiche) in search of her amour. At a play, she thinks she’s found it in the form of Christian de Neuvillette (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), who also happens to be a new recruit in Cyrano’s army regiment. Blessed with beauty but not with brains Christian and Cyrano team up to win Roxanne’s heart, with Christian as the face of Cyrano’s beautiful words.
This adaptation of Cyrano started out as a play, and eventually went to the big screen. No one fuses both worlds better than Joe Wright. The set and costume design are top notch: the opening theatre sequence in particular is a delight, showcasing the old timey resplendent evening wear and juxtaposition of the working class and elite in society. The Sicilian shooting locations give the movie a period appropriate feel, with castles and stone baking shops, etc. Wright’s addition of the musical numbers is hit and miss, but when they’re on (like the song on the field of battle), the give that Umbrellas of Cherbourg bump in magic and emotional heft that the movie needs to propel itself forward.
To adapt Cyrano though, is a tricky endeavor. The source material, let’s face it, is aging pretty rapidly: a couple of men dupe a woman into loving someone she wouldn’t, and strip her of any agency in the story. Wright has never been a master adapter of famous literature, but he does better with Cyrano than his other efforts. Casting helps a great deal; Dinklage is his sensational self as the famous Cyrano, carrying emotional distress on his face better than most actors working today. The scene in the bakery simply breaks your heart because of how Dinklage plays it. Haley Bennett and Kelvin Harrison Jr. do heavy lifting too, making what could be very unlikable characters pretty empathetic. Bennett finds ways to give Roxanne some agency despite the story, and Harrison does a great job expressing Christian’s frustration at being unable to say or do the right thing at the right time.
Though 2021’s Cyrano does a faithful service to its source material, I think I’m content with straight adaptations of the play. That’s because reimaginings of the play show how emotionally true and potent Cyrano’s message was without resorting to hundred year old relationship dynamics. To see Cyrano’s power in action in a modern tale, check out The Half of It on Netfilx, which captures that de Bergerac essence better than anything I’ve seen in recent memory.