Rent
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: November 23, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
14
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
One of the best film musicals in years -- exuberant, sexy and life affirming in equal measure. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Columbus is a member of the '80s generation and he gives the play authenticity, the respect of a classic, an epic visual scope and a sensibility that's blissfully free of any generational self-pity. It seems to be the movie he was born to make, and he serves it well. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The movie is literally a series of showstoppers, unified by the impulse to turn life, at its scruffiest, into theater - into a rhapsody of the everyday. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
But aside from a few overblown production numbers, Columbus respects the show's smaller scale, and the property itself is a knockout, with great tunes and engaging portraits of East Village bohemians in the AIDS-ravaged late 80s. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
It's a pretty good version of a pretty great stage phenomenon. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
If you fell in love with the big-hearted sentimentality of Rent when you saw it onstage, the film version will remind you why. If you think Jonathan Larson's musical is ponderous agitprop, the movie won't change your view. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldChristine Dolen
Now a vastly larger audience has the chance to experience the masterwork of a prodigiously talented man who died far too young. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
Columbus' schizoid approach works more often than not. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Rent isn't nearly as transporting a film as the Oscar-winning adaptation of "Chicago," but its energies and passions compensate for a lot of its deficiencies. Read full review
70
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Often dramatically jumbled and musically muddled - but every time the film seemed ready to tip into awfulness, the sneer on my lips was trumped by the lump in my throat. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Now that it is at last on screen, my reaction is ... what's all the fuss? Read full review
63
PremierePeter Debruge
Considering how much new additions Rosario Dawson (as Mimi) and Tracie Thoms (as Joanne) bring to the film, it's a shame Columbus didn't introduce more changes. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineAngel Cohn
While most of the show's scenes work well cinematically, some are laughably miscalculated. Rock-video aesthetics and overamplification swamp "Glory" and "What You Own" while also robbing other sequences of their depth. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
As a conventional drama, Rent would be a pretty corny soap opera. As filmed theater, it's only slightly more con­vincing. The saving graces - and there are many - are Larson's original songs and the comfortable fit of its ensemble cast. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Chris Columbus' relatively faithful and intermittently affecting adaptation boasts the boisterous vitality of its performers, particularly Jesse L. Martin and Wilson Jermaine Heredia as lovers Tom and Angel. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
On film, Rent is the sound of one hand clapping. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Rent, for all its good intentions and sensitivity, is easy to forget but easy to forgive. The music and direction feel generic but the cast deserves credit for squeezing every possible drop of emotion out of the material. Read full review
60
VarietyDavid Rooney
Director Chris Columbus has pasted the grungy "La Boheme" update onto film with slavish respect for the original material but a shortage of stylistic imagination and raw emotions. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJorge Morales
Instead of bringing a universal love story to the living present, the film traps it in a frozen past like a prehistoric bug in amber, as removed from moviegoers' experience as a dusty diorama at the American Museum of Natural History. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Yes, Rent is the movie about AIDS, heroin addiction, homosexuality, strippers, marijuana, cross-dressing, and bisexuality audiences can take their grandparents to go see safe in the knowledge that any lingering trace of danger or authenticity has been carefully removed by director/co-writer Chris Columbus. Read full review
50
USA TodayMike Clark
With heavy HIV subtext and a couple of actors who have scored in other films, this La Bohème spinoff about fatal illness, drug addiction and eviction ought to be less of a slog than it is. Read full review
50
Washington PostNelson Pressley
Onstage, Rent is a series of power surges, but in the movie the songs leave you flat. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
The screen version's Drama Club dorkiness is going to ruin the Rent brand of alleged downtown cool for everyone. If anything can re-shevel the disheveled multitudes of Alphabet City and chase the hipsters into pleated khakis and sweater sets, it's this film. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
It's pedestrian. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
If the great movie musicals are the ones that transport us to some heady superreality, the only place Rent takes us to is the Nederlander Theatre. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
I wasn't sure a movie musical could be worse than last year's styrofoam-and-gilt swan-boat travesty "Phantom of the Opera," but I'm afraid Rent proves me wrong. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Mediocre and recommended only to those who can claim a familiarity with the play. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Despite the grating, workmanlike direction of Chris Columbus (he's no Robert Wise, and Rent is nobody's idea of "West Side Story"), this boisterous adaptation is both a vivacious, wiseacre musical and an inarguable morality lesson: Love is all you need. Oh, and rent, of course. Read full review
42
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
In the movie, the unconverted will hold their ears as the banal tunes blare out in multichannel sound. And they'll wince as the camera closes in on every heart-tugging moment. Read full review
40
SlateDavid Edelstein
I found it tiresomely undramatic, even saccharine. Not to mention monotonous. Read full review
40
EmpireAngie Errigo
Cards on the table: rock operas pretty much suck except for "Tommy." Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Rent is commodified faux bohemia on a platter, eliciting the same kind of numbing soul-sadness as children's beauty pageants, tiny dogs in expensive boots, Mahatma Gandhi in Apple ads. Read full review
30
Dallas ObserverMelissa Levine
Rent plays as a very long joke with no punch line, an exercise in mawkish sentimentality that's embarrassing to watch. Kudos to the actors for truly committing to their roles, but with this material, it might have been better if they hadn't. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Heart-breakingly awful -- slow, lugubrious, and misconceived to the point of baffling amateurism.
20
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
To paraphrase the play's most famous song: how do you measure the lien against your soul when you're forced to sit through something as forcibly maudlin as Rent? I dunno, but 525,600 minutes is about how long this movie felt at times. Read full review
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