OVP: The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Film: The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Stars: Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver
Director: Joel Schumacher
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Art Direction, Cinematography, Original Song-"Learn to Be Lonely")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I know it's not what "I'm supposed to do" as a theater gay (a lax theater gay-I don't deserve to wear that crown in the same way I would a political gay or a cinephile gay), but I love Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals.  They might be a bit gaucher or louder than you'd normally expect from the theater (comparing him to Stephen Sondheim is a great theatrical parlor game, but let's be real here-they're trying to achieve different goals in the same way you can't really compare Spielberg to Scorsese).  Growing up there was one musical I loved of Webber's more than all else-The Phantom of the Opera.  I got the CD from my cousin (probably paid for by my aunt-and-uncle in hindsight) for Christmas, and I wore. it. out.  I haven't listened to this CD in at least 15 years, and watching it on the big screen, I knew every word by heart, to the point where in my stir crazy quarantine mode, I was texting one-person TikTok's to my brother of me singing "Masquerade."  But the question of course is-is the film any good?  The play gets a lot of its power not just from the songs, but also from the spectacle-could that be equalled on a big-screen?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is pretty close to the original musical, which is of course a loose adaptation of Gaston Leroux's 1909 novel, which is no stranger to onscreen adaptations (we've in fact reviewed a different version of this movie here).  The film tells the tale of Christine (Rossum), a talented opera ingenue who is unable to breakout at a Paris opera house because she's in the shadow of Carlotta (Driver, getting her camp on).  Christine is smitten with Raoul (Wilson), a theater patron who falls in love with her, but he has competition in the Phantom (Butler) who is referred to as the "Opera Ghost" and has been coaching Christine how to sing.  The film continues with the Phantom and the theater's proprietors quarreling over whether or not to put Christine or Carlotta in the leads of the productions, and the complicated love triangle between the Phantom, Raoul, and Christine, as the latter two are eventually engaged to be married.  The film ends with the Phantom being chased out of the catacombs (he has, to the credit of the mob that's chasing him, killed several people at this point in cold blood), with Christine going to be with Raoul.  The film ends at a gravesite many years later, with Raoul visiting the grave of his beloved, and finding a red rose with a ring that Christine had given the Phantom attached to it, meaning that the Phantom is still alive, and is still in love with Christine.

The film's music is really the drawing-card here.  While the singers here don't really have the same seismic bravado of OBC Michael Crawford & Sarah Brightman (or at least the 13-year-old gay boy inside of me is not willing to allow for such a concession), the singing is solid here.  It's kind of weird that Emmy Rossum, who has been pretty famous since this came out & had relatively decent reviews at the time never did another musical-perhaps the overall reviews for this movie might have sunk her from wanting to indulge in such an endeavor again.  Either way, she's the best part of the film.  Christine is arguably the least-interesting character in the musical production of this, but she finds a clear vision for the character that no one else really can.  Wilson's Raoul is still a wimp, Driver's indulgent diva breaks no ground, and while it's weird to think of Gerard Butler as kind of attractive here (his off-screen persona & terrible script choices since this have turned me off from him, to the point where I was shocked when he came onscreen and looked startlingly youthful), he doesn't have the range to pull off the Phantom, if not musically than certainly in terms of his thespian credentials.  Combined with Schumacher's indulgent direction (every single dramatic moment has to be underlined-it's a movie about opera, there's already enough flourish), the film is pretty gauche, and I get why it was dismissed as excessive when it first came out.

The film received three Oscar nominations in 2004.  The first, and the one it had the best shot of winning at time (I remember predicting it at the time) was "Learn to Be Lonely" for Original Song.  In hindsight, while this not a bad song, it's nowhere near to the excellence of even the worst of the numbers in the movie, and it's sung over the credits by Minnie Driver, the only person who doesn't actually sing their numbers in the musical.  I'm sure this was a negotiation on Driver's part to get to be featured vocally in the movie, but it also means the singer and song have little connection to the film, and it feels a bit like a rip-off (Rossum would've been a better choice).  The Art Direction is much better.  It's gaudy, but still kind of glorious-the giant opera house providing a lot of fun motifs, and the auction house in the opening being properly gloomy.  I know that "most" and "best" are sometimes exchanged with too little care by the Academy in this category, but that doesn't mean they can't intersect, and they do here.  I was slightly less-impressed by the Cinematography, though it's not bad.  The lighting from the grey-stained opening scenes at the auction house to the eventual grandeur of the film is a cool effect, as is the rooftop scene, which pays homage not just to Webber's work, but also to some of the same angles from the 1925 horror classic with Lon Chaney.  But what's in-between isn't as creative, and for a category that the Academy gets right more than most technical achievements, I have to dock some points for a lack of originality for long expanses of the film.  Overall, though, this was still a fun experience, recalling my glory days with my CD, even if the film itself cannot begin to equal those expectations.