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So I've never been able to figure out what I think of the movie Rigoletto. It's kind of a Beauty and the Beast meets The Phantom of the Opera in a family-friendly movie set during the Depression in a small Western town. Only digging a little more, it doesn't seem so family-friendly.
This mysterious guy moves into a big mansion in town and everyone is suspicious of him, even moreso when someone starts buying up their properties and evicting them. They're sure it's him. Meanwhile, around town, kids and adults with ailments are being healed with no apparent explanation.
The guy comes across as a real jerk; he's been bitter ever since his face was scarred in a mysterious incident. But he hires this young girl to work for him and she eventually sees the goodness in him and wants him to teach her to sing. He begins to feel better about himself and really becomes fond of her and her friends.
One day, while she's away at a singing competition, her friend comes by and the guy tries to walk her home after their visit. She likes taking a shortcut over an old dam. He doesn't like the idea at all. She falls in and he gets her out and takes her to town seeking help. Unfortunately, the people are so incensed by now believing he's taking their property that seeing him bringing the girl is the last straw. They think he hurt her and they start beating him up. They beat him unconscious, raid his house, and find a record book they think will prove he's the villain. Instead they learn he's been paying for their loved ones to be healed of their ailments.
He dies the next morning from his injuries. In true fairytale fashion, he does revive, only without the scarring. Only the main children of the story and the main girl's mother witness this and see him leaving with his friend and his girlfriend to return to their original home. Yeah, this is Beauty and the Beast in a platonic light; the girl who helps him feel better about himself/break the curse is not in love with him or vice versa. The actual girlfriend was pretty much beside herself not being able to get through to him.
Overall, it's basically a nice movie, especially for fairytale lovers. But the whole thing of the town beating him to death and then learning that he was trying to help their loved ones felt so very ugly. It really makes it hard for me to know what to think of the film as a whole. I wondered a day or two ago if that whole element was meant to be a Christian parallel, especially as I read that churches like to do their own productions of it. Regardless, though, I just don't like it. That sort of trope in things always tends to push my buttons the wrong way. I dunno; I suppose it's not worse than some of the things in Disney's animated fairytales. Maybe it just feels like it is because it's a trope that particularly gets me.
And I also have to wonder. Since it sounds like the character Rigoletto in the old opera is not a nice guy and really has no goodness to be discovered, why on Earth did the writer of the film name the character after him? There really isn't any connection with the opera beyond the name.
This mysterious guy moves into a big mansion in town and everyone is suspicious of him, even moreso when someone starts buying up their properties and evicting them. They're sure it's him. Meanwhile, around town, kids and adults with ailments are being healed with no apparent explanation.
The guy comes across as a real jerk; he's been bitter ever since his face was scarred in a mysterious incident. But he hires this young girl to work for him and she eventually sees the goodness in him and wants him to teach her to sing. He begins to feel better about himself and really becomes fond of her and her friends.
One day, while she's away at a singing competition, her friend comes by and the guy tries to walk her home after their visit. She likes taking a shortcut over an old dam. He doesn't like the idea at all. She falls in and he gets her out and takes her to town seeking help. Unfortunately, the people are so incensed by now believing he's taking their property that seeing him bringing the girl is the last straw. They think he hurt her and they start beating him up. They beat him unconscious, raid his house, and find a record book they think will prove he's the villain. Instead they learn he's been paying for their loved ones to be healed of their ailments.
He dies the next morning from his injuries. In true fairytale fashion, he does revive, only without the scarring. Only the main children of the story and the main girl's mother witness this and see him leaving with his friend and his girlfriend to return to their original home. Yeah, this is Beauty and the Beast in a platonic light; the girl who helps him feel better about himself/break the curse is not in love with him or vice versa. The actual girlfriend was pretty much beside herself not being able to get through to him.
Overall, it's basically a nice movie, especially for fairytale lovers. But the whole thing of the town beating him to death and then learning that he was trying to help their loved ones felt so very ugly. It really makes it hard for me to know what to think of the film as a whole. I wondered a day or two ago if that whole element was meant to be a Christian parallel, especially as I read that churches like to do their own productions of it. Regardless, though, I just don't like it. That sort of trope in things always tends to push my buttons the wrong way. I dunno; I suppose it's not worse than some of the things in Disney's animated fairytales. Maybe it just feels like it is because it's a trope that particularly gets me.
And I also have to wonder. Since it sounds like the character Rigoletto in the old opera is not a nice guy and really has no goodness to be discovered, why on Earth did the writer of the film name the character after him? There really isn't any connection with the opera beyond the name.
