Raoul follows and makes 'Unhand her, you swine!' threats that Big P ignores. Instead of being proud of his protegee, The Downstairs Man becomes jealous of her success, as well as the new owner of the Opera House, dishy Raoul (Patrick Wilson), who goes into full wooing mode.įinally, half mad with desire, he snatches Christine and carries her off to his lair, where lit candelabras rise out of the murky lake that surrounds his awesome organ. The little girl grows up and after those weird half-forgotten, half-remembered singing lessons with the funny-peculiar music teacher, she joins the chorus at the Opera House and one day when the prima donna (Minnie Driver) has one of her temperamental strops, she steps into the lead and is, naturally, a triumph. Unlike Quasimodo, he is not averse to bumping off the theatre staff when they irritate him and his interest in a little girl, called Christine, is less than healthy, especially for a social misfit whose sex life is deader than that of The Elephant Man. According to this adaptation, The Phantom escapes from a circus as a child and takes up residence in the bowels of the Paris Opera House, living in a dank cave for decades all alone with an organ and a limitless supply of candles.Īpparently, he educates himself, writes music, eats well, has an expensive wardrobe and hides half his face behind a mask, due, one imagines, to a disfiguring skin condition.

The story is The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, with added nasty bits. Of course, there are exceptions, Chicago being one, but what cinema does is eliminate stagecraft and expose the body of the book, leaving the songs exposed. It only goes to show that what works in the theatre does not necessarily work anywhere else.

The story has been simplified to the level of a cartoon, the music is portentous and the lyrics are more risible than profound. Watching the film, it seems incomprehensible that this is the longest running musical of all time (maybe).

Script phantom of the opera 2004