Cyrano is a 2021 musical romantic drama film directed by Joe Wright and with a screenplay by Erica Schmidt, based on Schmidt’s 2018 stage musical of the same name, itself based on the 1897 Edmond Rostand play Cyrano de Bergerac. The film stars Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Ben Mendelsohn.
Cyrano had its world premiere at the 48th Telluride Film Festival on 2 September 2021, had a one-week theatrical run in Los Angeles on 17 December 2021, and was for a wide theatrical release in the United States and the United Kingdom on 25 February 2022. The film was a box office disappointment, grossing $6.3 million on a $30 million budget. However, it received generally positive reviews from critics, for its praise Dinklage and Bennett’s performance and generic music soundtrack. It was nominated for several awards, including a Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (Dinklage) at the 79th Golden Globe Awards, four nominations at the 75th British Academy Film Awards and a Best Costume Design nod at the 94th Academy Awards.
Beautiful but penniless orphan Roxanne goes to the theater with the foppish Duke De Guiche, who is in love with her and determined to marry her. Roxanne states her desire to marry for love and while taking her seat, she and newly recruited soldier Christian de Neuvillette see each other and are instantly infatuated with one another. As the play begins, Roxanne’s childhood friend, the dwarven Cyrano de Bergerac, objects to the lead actor and chases him off the stage with rhyming insults, then duels a man who calls him a freak for his condition.
Roxanne meets privately with Cyrano, who she fails to realize is desperately in love with her. She tells him she has fallen in love with Christian at first sight and asks him to arrange a meeting. Though heartbroken, Cyrano meets Christian and discovers he is inarticulate and incapable of expressing his feelings. Not wanting to disappoint Roxanne, he writes countless letters expressing his own deep feelings of love for her, which Christian delivers as his own writing.
When Christian and Roxanne finally meet in person, he is unable to match the power of Cyrano’s words, which caused her to fall in love with Christian, and he inadvertently insults her. Roxanne declares she needs more than simple platitudes and storms off. Later, Cyrano helps Christian make amends by hiding in the shadows and whispering what to say to Roxanne. She forgives him as a letter from De Guiche arrives with a priest, declaring that he is coming to either marry her or have his way with her. Roxanne and Christian hastily marry and De Guiche, infuriated, arranges for Christian and Cyrano’s unit to be sent to the front.
While at war, Cyrano sends Roxanne a letter from Christian every day and risks his own life to keep Christian alive for Roxanne. De Guiche eventually sends their unit on a suicide mission, and Cyrano reveals he has already written a final letter to Roxanne. Christian sees the letter is stained with tears and realizes Cyrano loves Roxanne, and that the man Roxanne really loves is Cyrano. He runs out to meet the enemy’s guns and is killed.
Three years later, Cyrano is impoverished and in ill health from war wounds that never fully healed. Roxanne remains his close friend. Sensing he is about to die, Cyrano meets with Roxanne and asks for Christian’s final letter. He recites it from memory, revealing that all of Christian’s letters were from him, and Roxanne declares her love for Cyrano before he dies peacefully
