It’s perplexing.
We’re not saying “Cyrano” is the best film of 2022 or that no performance was better than Peter Dinklage’s portrayal of its namesake character.
Yet for “Cyrano” — a musical adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play, “Cyrano de Bergerac” — to receive but one well-deserved Academy Award nomination is a head-scratcher.
A beautiful film, as those directed by Joe Wright (“Pride & Prejudice” “Pan”) tend to be, “Cyrano” saw a limited theatrical release in December (making it eligible for awards-season honors) and is hitting theaters everywhere this weekend.
The sumptuous affair initially was crafted by its writer, Erica Schmidt, as a stage work. It now lives gloriously on the screen, with “Game of Thrones” star Dinklage — Schmidt’s husband — giving a captivating performance in the titular role. The tale is told largely through memorable songs crafted by members of an acclaimed alt-rock act, The National. And among its many strong elements is it’s first-class costuming. (It is for costume design that Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran have the movie’s only chance to go home with an Oscar on March 27.)
In Rostand’s poetic work — and in many if not all of the numerous earlier adaptations of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” including the 1987 comedy “Roxanne,” starring Steve Martin — the male lead is intelligent, witty and strong, but he lacks some confidence due to his large nose.
In “Cyrano,” it is the character’s diminutive physical stature — due to a genetic disorder that causes a form of dwarfism, Dinklage stands only a bit taller than 4 feet — that serves as the reason why he has never confessed to longtime friend Roxanne (Haley Bennett) his all-consuming love and adoration for her.
He certainly is confident when it comes to matters other than those of the heart — we meet him making a grand entrance to a packed theater, where, after verbally abusing a second-rate actor on stage, he bests a man in a sword fight.
When he does finally begin to express his feelings for Roxanne he initially takes from her responses that she is encouraging the profession of his love. However, he soon realizes she is not speaking of him but of another, a man she doesn’t know but in whom she believes to have found love at first sight.
Making matters worse, she asks Cyrano not only to befriend this handsome, newly arrived King’s Guard recruit, Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), but also to watch over and protect him. She even wanted Cyrano to encourage Christian to write her letters.
He does all this dutifully but very quickly discovers Christian, while a kind gentleman, has almost no way with words. Tragically, Cyrano must write his letters for him, pouring his actual feelings for Roxanne on to page after page, allowing Christian to take credit for the myriad beautiful words and phrases. How will Christian say such things to Roxanne when they finally meet? Well, yes, that is a tricky situation, isn’t it?
Further complicating matters: Roxanne is on a course to marry a man she doesn’t love, Duke De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn), who wields the power to send both Cyrano and Christian into battle.
Although the original work is set in France in the mid-1600s, Wright — no stranger to period films — designed “Cyrano” to have a more vague “yesteryear” quality, according to the film’s production notes.
It was shot in various Italian locales, with much of the filming taking place on the island of Sicily in the town of Noto, home to 17th-century Baroque architecture, which lends much personality to the first three of the movie’s five acts. The final two have distinctly different tones, helping “Cyrano” to feel like quite a journey by the time it has concluded.
While not Wright’s finest film — that honor likely belonging to 2017’s “Darkest Hour,” a nominee for the best-picture Oscar — “Cyrano” is another showcase for much of what the director does so well, immersing us in a memorable setting and making us care about the characters who inhabit it.
Along with Parrini and Durran. among Wright’s many behind-the-scenes collaborators worth a mention for their work here are cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer, all of whom worked with the director on at least “Atonement” (2007) and “Anna Karenina” (2012).
On the other side of the camera, while Bennett (“Hillbilly Elegy”), Harrison (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) and the typically villainous Mendelsohn (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “Captain Marvel”) add something to the proceedings, it is Dinklage (“The Station Agent,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”) who carries them. Just as could in HBO’s “Thrones,” the actor moves you not just with perfect line deliveries but also with facial expressions that say so much themselves.
He may also be partially responsible for the movie’s not-to-be-overlooked musical component, Dinklage saying he’d been a fan of The National since hearing “Terrible Love” — the opening track from 2010’s terrific “High Violet” — during the early days of filming “Thrones.” While Dinklage isn’t likely to be mistaken for a topnotch singer, he is, as he says in the production notes, able to live in “a similar baritone register” as The National’s frontman, Matt Berringer, so you can see how this formula could work out as well as it has.
As you’re making time to see all the serious Oscar contenders, make an effort to catch a film that should have been among them.
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‘CYRANO’
3.5 stars (out of 4)
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some strong violence, thematic and suggestive material and brief language)
Runtime: 2:04
Where to watch: In theaters Friday
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