Cyrano review – lush romance takes Joe Wright back to his comfort zone

After the strangely drab Darkest Hour and just plain strange The Woman in the Window, Joe Wright returns back to his comfort zone of romantic sumptuousness for Cyrano, a musical take on the classic novel Cyrano de Bergerac. For the most part, it’s a very welcome homecoming, barrelling past its flaws and missteps with lush visuals, belted-out ballads, and a true star turn from Peter Dinklage in the kind of flashy leading man role he’s been owed for a while.

Dinklage takes on the title role – one which he has previously played on stage – of the magnificently witty romantic who feels his physical differences (in this case his stature rather than the traditional massive noise) preclude him from winning the affections of his true love, the beautiful Roxane (Hayley Bennett). The changing of the origin of Cyrano’s insecurity is one of Erica Schmidt’s script’s best choices, allowing Dinklage’s performance to shine through without any distracting prosthetics, though some of the story’s other foibles prove harder to dodge on the big screen.

The love at first sight between Roxane and handsome but inarticulate soldier Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is hard to believe in – though the ability to do the romancing through song does help – feeling less like real love than simply a necessary plot move to allow Cyrano to pour his heart out through the letters to Roxane that he credits to Christian. Dinklage plays the self-imposed exacerbation of his own romantic agony very well, a touching mix of pain and pride as his words cause Roxane to fall ever deeper in love with Christian and, though his singing isn’t perfect, this deep well of emotion adds a lot of punch to his musical numbers.

The songs – written by the band The National – are, mostly, a lot of fun, sweeping ballads with just a hint of indie flair, nicely staged by Wright. In general, the absolute best numbers are those given to the large choruses found throughout the film – a military march to certain death probably the highlight – but everyone gets a song to shine, even the otherwise entirely wasted Ben Mendelsohn, playing the slimy duke. Bennett’s songs add depth and range to the rather thankless role of Roxane, and Harrison Jr. really impresses in his first musical role.

Wright has a knack for sensuality that is often sorely lacking in romances like this, which he puts to good use, especially in the letter-writing montage that he stages as if it were a passionate sex scene. It’s a bold gambit, but one that pays off, making the love triangle convincing in a way that the spoken scenes sometimes fail to. Cyrano is overlong, and the romantic misstep moments often feel dragged out up until a pretty flat ending.

Even with these faults, though, the film winds up mostly irresistible, an old-school love story told through bouncy songs with some stunning scenery – the Sicilian locations on which Wright filmed are amazing, from ruggedly wild landscapes to beautiful seafront architecture. It’s a return to form for an inconsistent but still often virtuoso filmmaker, playing to his strengths of secret love while adding bold new stylistic strings to his bow.

Cyrano is in cinemas from 25 February.