Cyrano De Bergerac

A virtuoso update. Gerard Depardieu's Cyrano is nothing short of magnificent. In this version of Edmond Rostand's classic drama of unrequited love, his Cyrano is less physical caricature, more flesh and blood, and a markedly younger, more virile nobleman than the usually avuncular ones of the past. Dealing as it does with universals--that beauty is both in the eye of the beholder and only skin deep--this slightly abbreviated adaptation by director Jean-Paul Rappeneau and Jean-Claude Carriere retains both the panache and poignancy of its source.

As in the play, the film opens in a theater where the lovers first meet and where Cyrano has come to jeer at his enemy,...