Cert: 12A | ★★✩✩✩

Starring Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage as the titular character and Haley Bennett (The Devil All the Time, Hillbilly Elegy) as Roxanne, this musical interpretation of the much loved and frequently adapted 1897 French play Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand) also stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Waves, The Trial of the Chicago 7) as Christian.
Cyrano de Bergerac, a French nobleman and poet, is madly in love with the beautiful Roxanne, but is too self-conscious to woo the recently impoverished young woman.
Meanwhile, Roxanne is also being courted by boorish dandy nobleman De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn) whom she might be forced to marry if she is to keep a roof over her head.
The young woman however has only eyes for Christian, a handsome young guard newly arrived in town. Cyrano later agrees to help Christian win his beloved’s affection and admiration by lending the young man his words to pass off as his own.
Of course, there have been multiple adaptations of this classic tale of unrequited love, but the ones most people will remember are the 1990 French version starring Gérard Depardieu and Steve Martin’s unequalled interpretation of Cyrano in the much loved Roxanne.
Sadly, and despite their best efforts, director Joe Wright and screenwriter Erica Schmidt fail to reproduce that same tragic-comic brilliance seen in those earlier adaptations.
Instead we are forced to sit through two hours of excruciatingly dull and unimaginative musical numbers which often feel too sombre and seriously lacking in any kind of comic relief.
Granted, the performances are great, but what this ambitious adaptation was in serious need of, is the ability to take itself a little less seriously.
Bar a very moving pre-battle sequence towards the end of the film’s second act, there is truly nothing here that we haven’t seen done before.
Failed by its screenplay’s lack of playfulness, Cyrano’s only saving grace is Peter Dinklage’s impressive ability to feel at ease in any given genre. Here he has shown again that he is one of the best actors working in Hollywood right now.