With his normal-sized nose, Peter Dinklage is a lovesick wordsmith in the Cyrano trailer
The latest from Joe Wright is a lavish musical adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac is the story of a man with a beautiful soul and a big nose. It’s a tale as old as time: A nice guy can’t get the girl because his nose is too big—or rather he’s self-conscious about his nose—so he has a more conventionally attractive man woo his distant cousin for him by using Cyrano’s words.
Joe Wright’s lavish musical adaptation of the tale Cyrano ditches the nose and the “distant cousin” stuff for Peter Dinklage, who is more concerned with his height than anything else. Despite being unspeakably handsome and charming, Cyrano is still hopelessly insecure. Here’s the full synopsis:
Cyrano centers on a love triangle between a French Army officer named Cyrano, a beautiful woman named Roxanne, and a handsome new cadet named Christian. Cyrano is deeply in love with Roxanne, but, because of his physical appearance, assumes she would never love him back. So when she confides in him that she is in love with Christian, Cyrano, an accomplished wordsmith, helps Christian woo her by writing letters for him to send to her.
Cyrano is the latest from Joe Wright, the director of austere dramas (Darkest Hour, Atonement) and Pan. While his last film, The Woman In The Window, was one of those early pandemic botched releases, this one promises to come to theaters.
The film stars Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ben Mendelsohn, and Bashir Salahuddin. Dinklage and Bennett are reprising their role from the stage version, which features songs by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National, with lyrics by fellow National member Matter Berninger and, um, non-National member Carin Besser.
There have been plenty of versions of Cyrano de Bergerac over the years. In the ‘90s, copies of Steve Martin’s 1987 comedy Roxanne and Gerard Depardieu’s award-winning adaptation filled Blockbuster shelves from sea to shining sea. Now those were nose prosthetics you could set your watch to. Last year, Netflix took a stab at an update, The Half Of It. Sadly, this version also lacked a big nose.
Cyrano opens in select theaters on December 31.