Rent is a American film adaptation of the Broadway musical, which was based on Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning musical. This musical-based movie details of a couple of Bohemians and their struggles with sexuality, drugs, living under the shadow of AIDS, and of course, paying their rent. It takes place in the East Village area of New York City in the late 1980s. The film, directed by Chris Columbus, had six of the original Broadway cast members reprising their roles.

Plot

The film's plot is largely identical to that of the original Broadway musical, although there are several minor differences between the two resulting from the filmmakers' decision to omit several songs from the original musical and to change some of the spoken dialogue.

After an introduction with the cast singing "Seasons of Love", the film opens on Christmas Eve, 1989, with apartment tenants (including two friends and roommates, Mark (Anthony Rapp) and Roger (Adam Pascal)) expressing their anger at suddenly being asked to pay the rent, which had previously been waived by their friend. Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin), a former roommate of Mark's and friend to both Mark and Roger, returns from out of town and is attacked by three men and left for dead in an alley ("Rent"). Benjamin Coffin III (Taye Diggs), also known as Benny, the landlord and former roommate of Mark, Roger, and Collins, who has married into a wealthy family, offers to give Mark and Roger free rent again if they can convince Maureen (Idina Menzel) (Mark's ex-girlfriend) to stop her protest. The protest is to take place at Maureen's performance space, which Benny is planning to turn into a cyber-studio ("You'll See"). A street drummer, Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), finds Collins in the alleyway and leads him away to get him cleaned up. Angel also mentions that he will soon be attending a Life Support meeting, telling Collins that he has AIDS, to which Collins simply replies, "Me too."