However, Driver’s portrayal of La Carlotta provides the needed lightness to this otherwise melodramatic tale. But, the movie does not give them much scope to showcase their acting skills as they are forced to sing and give dramatic poses. Papamichael observes that Butler has a ‘seductive intensity,’ and Rossum looks very innocent (Papamichael, para 3). Stella Papamichael is a freelance film journalist who writes movie reviews at bbc.co.uk/movies and also for the Total Film Magazine.
The plot and movie are well constructed and move to a pulsating climax set on a grand opera stage. Christine makes her choice and kisses the Phantom, who then sets Raoul and Christine free.
While performing with the Phantom on stage, Christine rips his mask off, after which the Phantom kidnaps her and tries to force her to marry him. The Phantom falls in love with Christine, who makes a dramatic entry into the music scene and is very upset to realize that Christine is in love with the handsome and rich Raoul, her childhood sweetheart. Christine, a beautiful chorus singer, learns music secretly from a brooding and disfigured musical genius called “The Phantom” who lives in the sewers under the city’s Opera House. The story of “Phantom of the Opera” is set in Paris in 1870. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical of the same name is currently the longest-running Broadway show in history and the most lucrative entertainment enterprise of all time. Released on December 22, 2004, the film is an adaptation of a screenplay by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Joel Schumacher, which in turn is based upon the novel “Le Fantome de opera by Gaston Leroux. It is produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, and Minnie Driver. Picture in association with Odyssey Entertainment. The Phantom of the Opera is a film presented by Warner Bros.