| His
voice calls to her, nurturing her extraordinary talents from the
shadows of the opera house where innocent chorus girl Christine
Daae (EMMY ROSSUM) makes her home. Only ballet mistress Madame
Giry (MIRANDA RICHARDSON) knows that Christine’s mysterious “Angel of
Music” is actually the Phantom (GERARD BUTLER), a disfigured
musical genius who haunts the catacombs of the theatre, terrifying
the ensemble of artists who live and work there. When
temperamental diva La Carlotta (MINNIE DRIVER) walks out in the
middle of a dress rehearsal for the company’s latest production,
the theatre’s eager new managers (SIMON CALLOW and CIARAN
HINDS) have no choice but to thrust Christine into the spotlight. Her
mesmerizing opening night performance captivates both the audience
and the Phantom, who devotes himself to casting his protégé
as the opera’s next star. But he is not the only powerful
man to be awed by the young soprano, as Christine soon finds herself
courted by the theatre’s wealthy patron, the Vicompte Raoul
de Chagny (PATRICK WILSON). Though
she is enthralled by her charismatic mentor, Christine is undeniably
drawn to the dashing Raoul, enraging the Phantom and setting the
stage for a dramatic crescendo in which soaring passions, fierce
jealousies and obsessive love threaten to drive the fated lovers
past the point of no return.
This holiday season, Andrew Lloyd Webber, director Joel Schumacher
and Warner Bros. Pictures will proudly present The Phantom of
the Opera, the highly anticipated film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s
celebrated stage musical. Based
on Gaston Leroux’s novel The Phantom of the Opera, Lloyd Webber’s
musical phenomenon is the largest grossing stage or screen production
in the world, having garnered worldwide box office receipts over
$3.2 billion. Since
its debut in London’s West End at Her Majesty’s Theatre
on October 9, 1986, the enduringly popular musical has reached an
estimated audience of 80 million people. More than 65,000 performances
of Phantom have been staged for theatergoers in 18 countries around
the world. In August of 2003, the show marked its 7000th performance.
Productions of Phantom have earned over 50 major awards, including
three Olivier Awards, seven Tony Awards, seven Drama Desk Awards
and three Outer Critic’s Circle Awards. |
 Andrew
Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera
is a hard movie to review. I mean, what do you focus on? The acting?
That’s been influenced by years of stage and film actors’ interpretations.
The music? Again, this film version is very close to Webber’s
original score, used for years in the stage production. The sets
and costumes? Sorry. My wife informs me that they look exactly as
they looked when she saw the show on Broadway. The casting? Yeah,
I guess . . . but why talk about any of that, which was all just
as good, yet predictable, as you’d expect given the success
of the musical, when you can talk about what’s really important
here—when you can talk about what transcends the acting, the
production details, even the music—the story. No, I will
not here explain the plot, which most people know anyway, but I
would like to look more deeply at the significance of the story
itself.
 Phantom
is, like so many tales, about human needs and desires, and what
we’ll do to fulfill them. The main character of the film,
really, is the titular Phantom. His desires can seem complex, but
really boil down to the need to love and be loved—all stemming
from his facial disfigurement and resulting childhood abuse. Christine,
around whom centers most of the Phantom’s attempts at happiness,
first needs to make peace with her father’s death, and later
wants to be rid of her “Angel of Music” (the Phantom),
so she can be with Raoul. And Raoul—the third point of this
classic love-triangle—very simply loves Christine and wants
her for himself.
 The
fulfillment of these needs/desires, or lack thereof, is all initially
due to the actions of the Phantom himself. It is he who secretly
tutors Christine, perhaps hoping to vicariously win the opera’s love through her gift, and falling in love
with her in the process. It is his unveiling of himself to Christine
that proves that he is not the ghost of her father, and that starts
her on the path to peace with his absence. It is the Phantom’s
jealous pursuit that sparks Christine and Raoul’s clinging
to each other, and his violence that forces her to choose between
them. And at the end, when she is dead, he is still there—like
a Phantom should be—loving her, and undoubtedly still regretting
that his love was not reciprocated.
 As
I watched the film, reveling in the music, but also trying to
put my finger on the spiritual implications of such a tangle
of requited and unrequited desire, I found that my ideas didn’t solidify easily. I mean, surely this film has
to do with good and evil, and life and death, and love and hate,
and all these big spiritual themes—but I couldn’t wrap
it up in a nice box. I’ve decided that it’s because I
was trying (for some reason) to make the story be a perfect Christian
allegory, which it’s not. It’s close: Christine is the
everyperson/Eve figure, trying to fill the void left by her father.
She is lured underground by the Phantom, to his personal hell of
confinement, where he tempts her like the devil. Raoul, the Christ
figure, whom Christine fell in love with on the roof of the opera
house—suggestive of heaven, as opposed to the underground lair
of the Phantom—then comes and rescues her, and they live happily
ever after. But there are holes here, mainly having to do with Raoul
not being a very developed character, and with the sympathetic presentation
of the Phantom. So, instead of trying to simplify the story in this
way, I’d like to just lay out some random thoughts on two things
that this film does, spiritually speaking. First, Phantom makes us
consider the nature of good and evil. Like other stories in this
vein—Paradise Lost, Jekyll and Hyde, and Prometheus Unbound
come to mind—the Phantom is “the bad guy,” but
because of the complexity, sympathetic presentation, and motivations
of the character, the audience is forced to consider what it really
means to be “the bad guy.” Do we root for the heroic,
questing Christ figure, Raoul? Or do we root for the Phantom, whose
downfalls seem forgivable, given what we know about him? Or is the
Phantom himself the hero, the “good guy?” Does he, in
some way, save Christine more than Raoul does? Does Christine even
need to be saved from him? Or is he saved by her, and somehow redeemed
by the end? All good questions, and all questions that don’t
come up in stories with simpler presentations of heroes and villains.
Second, Phantom gives insight into what we all know about ourselves:
we’re always striving for something, and we’ll go through
a lot to get it. Our strivings are often very deep in our nature,
and often have to do with father/mother issues, and with love. But
as C.S. Lewis once suggested, if we have a desire, there must be
a way to fulfill it—so perhaps there is a way to fulfill that
need we all seem to have for a perfect parent-child relationship.
Perhaps there is a way to love perfectly and be loved perfectly,
unmarred by ulterior motives, or misperceptions, or miscommunications,
or our past. And, as with the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul, perhaps
our choices play a role in how these needs are met. This, at the
risk of simplifying again, may be the real strength of the story:
it makes us seriously consider desire, proper action, motivation,
consequences—in short, morality. The Phantom of the Opera is
a morality play, hidden inside a love story, with big visuals and
good music. It makes us think about our part in this big morality
play called “our lives.” And, upon reflection, it will
hopefully also make us think about the possibility of all our evils
being understood and remedied, of all our desires being fulfilled,
of all our needs being met. As such, Phantom truly is an “Angel
of Music.”
|
Review
by 
