Peter Dinklage and Ben Mendelsohn in Cyrano

Peter Dinklage and Ben Mendelsohn star in British director Joe Wright’s Cyrano, which is primarily a bittersweet love story.

Haley Bennett stars as Roxanne in Joe Wright’s Cyrano

Cyrano
In cinemas
★★★★

There have been numerous screen versions of French poet and dramatist Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play, Cyrano de Bergerac. Based on a real character, and written in rhyming couplets, the play was an international success undoubtedly because of the combination of poignancy and humour in the very original and unusual romance. Cyrano was famous for his unusually long nose, a defect that, in the opinion of himself and most others, made him too ugly ever to be a successful lover. As a consequence, his ardent attraction to Roxanne, the beautiful woman he has known since childhood, has, he believes, no future.

The first film version of the play was made in France in 1925 as a silent, and subsequently there have been several screen adaptations, some of them very loose, others faithful to the original. The first English language film version, made in 1950, won for Jose Ferrer the Best Actor Oscar under the direction of Michael Gordon (fourteen years later Ferrer reprised his role in a French film, Cyrano et D’Artagnan, directed by Abel Gance). Australia’s Fred Schepisi made a success of a modernised version of the story, with Steve Martin as the long-nosed lover, in Roxanne (1987) but the definitive screen version is Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) in which Gerard Depardieu is memorable in the leading role.

British director Joe Wright’s Cyrano takes a different approach to the material. For one thing it’s a musical, based on an off-Broadway production written by Erica Schmidt whose husband, Peter Dinklage, played the title role as he also does in the new film. There is no requirement here for Dinklage to add a false nose; the actor’s short stature is, of itself, reason enough for Cyrano’s romantic yearnings to be frustrated. Roxanne (Haley Bennett) is – literally – beyond his reach romantically.

Wright’s early films – Pride and Prejudice (2005) and Atonement (2007) – signified a striking visual craftsman as well as a director able to work wonderfully well with actors; who can forget that long, interrupted take of the chaos on the Dunkirk beach in Atonement? There’s a similar coup here, a splendidly choreographed sequence in which Cyrano fends off a bunch of sabre-wielding attackers with all the resourcefulness of Toshiro Mifune in a Kurosawa samurai epic.

But Cyrano is primarily a love story, and a bittersweet one. Roxanne is loved by the inarticulate Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr) who seeks help from Cyrano to write the ardent love letters with which he seeks to woo her. A balcony scene, as memorable in its own way as the one in Romeo and Juliet, forms a dramatic centrepiece to the drama.

Alongside these three principal characters is the drama’s villain, the Duke de Guiche, an arrogant, puffed-up, pomaded bully played to the hilt by the great Ben Mendelsohn. It’s not a large role, but the Australian actor almost steals the movie.

The songs – music by Bryce and Aaron Dressner, lyrics by Matt Berninger and Carin Besser – aren’t particularly memorable, though Mendelsohn is given a rousing solo. Dinklage, who is a magnetic screen presence, is not a great singer, but Bennett more than makes up for any deficiencies in the vocal department.

Above all the film is a visual feast. It was filmed in Sicily during the 2020 Covid pandemic and sequences like a battle in the snow are rousingly handled.

The emphasis in this adaptation is closer to tragedy than in some of the earlier versions of Rostand’s play, but the material, with its timeless story of unrequited love, proves itself to be remarkably adaptable.

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Aline (M)
In cinemas
★★

Cinematic biographies of celebrated entertainers have been popular of late – Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Aretha Franklin, among others, have had their stories told on film. The latest, and quite the most unusual, is Aline, a French film that purports to tell the story of French-Canadian singing star Celine Dion. Valerie Lemercier, who is in her 50s, not only directs but also portrays Dion from her teenage years onwards. Actually, that’s not quite accurate because this unauthorised biopic is, as the opening title explains, “a fiction freely inspired by the life of Celine Dion”. Lemercier has renamed her Aline Dieu (Dieu being French for God, make of that whatever you want.)

The youngest of 14 children born to a modest couple who live in rural Quebec, Aline is gifted with a powerful singing voice and by the age of 12 is already making her mark, encouraged by her parents, Sylvette (Danielle Fichaud) and Anglomard (Roc Lafortune). She is brought to the attention of Guy-Clarke (Sylvain Marcel), an agent and manager based in Montreal, and is soon recognised on the international stage thanks to his efforts (research reveals that Dion is the best-selling French language performer of all time). The film explores her relationship with Guy-Clarke, who is considerably older than she is and already has two unsuccessful marriages behind him when they meet; against her parents’ wishes they marry.

Victoria Sio provides Aline’s singing voice and performs some of Dion’s greatest hits. But it was interesting to explore some of the Canadian attitudes towards Lemercier’s film which have been, on the whole, far from enthusiastic (there are many complaints about the character’s unconvincing accent). You have to give Lemercier credit for her ambition here, but the end result comes across as indulgent and, to a considerable degree, misguided.

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C'mon C’mon (M)
In cinemas
★★★

For his first feature film since he won the Oscar for playing the psychotic Joker, Joaquin Phoenix portrays a character who could hardly be more different. Johnny is a radio journalist who has embarked on a project in which he records interviews with children in which he asks them how they see their futures panning out.

Johnny is alone in the world – his girlfriend has ended their relationship – but he seems to be perfectly content with his task of talking to kids – and, indeed, the invariably articulate responses of the youngsters, which form a crucial part of the film, are never less than revealing. Johnny’s sister, Viv (Gaby Hoffmann) lives in Los Angeles while he’s currently based in Detroit, and they haven’t been in touch since the death of their mother a year earlier. On the first anniversary of the mother’s death Johnny calls Viv only to discover that her husband, Paul (Scoot McNairy), who is bipolar, is going through a particularly bad patch. Spontaneously Johnny offers to come to L.A. to help Viv look after Jesse (Woody Norman), his nine-year-old nephew.

This act of kindness soon develops into a close relationship between the boy and his uncle.

Johnny continues to make his recordings, allowing Jesse to carry the microphone and to participate. With Viv’s permission the pair begin to travel the country – to San Francisco, New York and New Orleans. In a key scene Johnny loses sight of Jesse on a busy New York street and his panic is something any parent will recognise.

Writer-director Michael Mills previously made films about his relationship with his father (Beginners, 2010) and his mother (20th Century Women, 2016) and in C’mon C’mon he has been inspired by his experiences of becoming a father. The core of this somewhat over-extended film is the central relationship between the man and the boy, and both actors give fine performances. Young Norman, who has a wonderfully direct way of talking – he’s forever asking tricky questions, like “Why aren’t you married?” – is a real find.

In common with a handful of recent films, Belfast and The Tragedy of Macbeth among them, the film, beautifully photographed by Robbie Ryan, is in black and white, an artistic decision that works well for the modest material. In terms of content, the film is fairly minimal, but it’s almost always an enjoyable experience, unless you find that Jesse’s constant prattle becomes irritating as the film progresses.

Joaquin Phoenix and Woody Norman star in C'mon C'mon