Rent: Movie Analysis

Rent is personally one of my all time favorite productions. It is a Broadway musical and motion picture that is set in New York City’s East Village during a time period when HIV and AIDS was a common issue. This musical expresses many other issues through its content. Most of these issues are things that the characters must learn to deal with and try to fix throughout the span of the film. Some of the problems depicted are the characters struggling with drugs, understanding sexuality, paying their rent, and living with HIV/AIDS. These different issues each contribute to the fact that in this world there are many different types of people who are often viewed in many different ways. The beginning of the film takes place on Christmas Eve in
Their landlord, Benny Coffin, is threatening to evict all of his residents so that he can build a cyber studio in place of the apartment complex because he isn’t making any money by owning this complex. About an hour and thirty minutes into the film, Benny puts a pad lock on the door of Mark and Roger’s apartment and takes everything that they own. This shows a lot about who Benny is as a person and what he thinks about the people who rent out of his apartment complex. After watching the few scenes involving Benny and his apartment’s residents, it becomes clear that he looks down on people who don’t have a dollar to their name. It also shows how he thinks he is better than these “poor” people just because he has the ability to throw them out onto the streets at any point in time. This also connects to the real world in a way. It is a known fact that there is the upper class and lower class in our world’s societies. In this world, there are cases where the “lower class” is looked down upon because they don’t have materials or money to flaunt how “great” they are. Towards the end of the film, something happens that typically wouldn’t; Benny ends up having a change in heart. He goes back to Mark and Roger’s apartment to return their belongings