I have never seen the Pulitzer Prize-winning rock opera “Rent” on the stage. Other than the song “Seasons of Love” (and who doesn’t know that over-played anthem) I knew nothing about the music. While I’m more than familiar with Jesse L. Martin (NBC’s “Law and Order”) and Taye Diggs (“Chicago”), the rest of the cast making the transition from the original stage version to the silver screen are complete unknowns to me. Finally, if you asked me about New York in the late 80’s/early 90’s, the bohemian artist lifestyle or what the heck a squatter’s rights are all you’d get from me would be a blank unknowing stare.

The thing is, none of the not knowing mattered to me all that much where it came to the thought of viewing Chris Columbus’ theatrical interpretation of the late Jonathan Larson’s Broadway smash. I like musicals (as long as a certain man named Webber isn’t behind them) and a rock opera chronicling a year in the life of eight friends dealing with AIDS, poverty and artistic expression certainly isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Still, something about “Rent” nagged at me in the back corners of my mind, the one thing I did know more than enough to get me to silently dread the thought of sitting through the thing.

And what might that be? That, my friends, would be the normal larger-than-life, more-is-more, subtlety-is-not-in-my-playbook directing style of filmmaker Columbus. While I freely admit to enjoying a couple of his earlier films (the first “Home Alone” is admittedly funny and “Adventures in Babysitting” is an all-time guilty pleasure), the majority are either remarkably hit-or-miss (the first two “Harry Potter” adventures, “Only the Lonely,” “Mrs. Doubtfire”), not very good (“Nine Months”) or outright terrible (“Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” “Stepmom”). His films are short on smarts and long on syrup, Columbus not one to look at a teary-eyed cliché he probably didn’t want to embrace.

Flat-out, this man scares me, and just his name above the title alone is enough to make me wonder if going into the theater is a good idea.

Well color me shocked and awed because, not only is “Rent” a damn fine musical, it’s also a surprisingly subtle and refreshingly un-cliché one, Columbus forgoing (well, for the most part, he still has his moments) his dark side in favor of bringing Larson’s baby to energetically emotional vivacious life. This just might be the single most shockingly good movie I’ve seen all year, and with as underwhelming as much of this fall’s more high profile flicks have been “Rent” couldn’t have come at a better time.

Inspired by Puccini’s classic opera “La Bohemme,” “Rent” follows a year in the life (or 355, 600 minutes, but who’s counting) of a group of penniless friends living in New York’s East Village. Roger (Adam Pascal) is an aspiring songwriter (and recovering heroin addict) who has emotionally cut himself off from others after his girlfriend commits suicide. Mimi (Rosario Dawson, one of two new cast members) is his downstairs neighbor with her own baggage trying to get him to change his mind on that.

Roger’s roommate Mark (Anthony Rapp) thinks his friend should give the sexy exotic dancer a chance. Not that he’s really one to give advice on love. He’s still wrapped around the finger of his self-indulgent and sexy performance artist ex-girlfriend Maureen (Idina Menzel), coming like a beckoned dog when she needs help fixing some audio equipment. This doesn’t sit well with her current partner, a driven and successful lawyer named Joanne (Tracie Thoms, the other new cast member). She sees Mark as a threat; a threat, that is, until she starts to come to the uncomforting realization she might have more in common with this man than she’d like to admit.

Then there is consistently down-on-his-luck eternal optimist Tom Collins (Martin), a professor of philosophy who may have just found his soul mate in the form of transgender street drummer Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia) after she helps him recover from a brutal back alley mugging. Rounding out the octet is Benny (Diggs), a former member of the close-knit group who managed to alienate his friends by marrying the landlord’s daughter. Granted, Christmas Eve eviction notes probably didn’t help matters there, either, but he’s not going to let little things like friendship cancel out his desires to impress his new bride’s father.

It’s a simple enough plot. Heck, I’d even go so far and agree with a few others out there and say much of it is rather dated and stale. But what the core of what this is all about; about being friends, about love, about life, about getting along through thick and thin; that hasn’t dated, and with issues as diverse as poverty, AIDS, commercialism, artistic expressionism and illness as seen through the prism of a full decade’s hindsight “Rent” is nothing if not consistently interesting. These characters and their stories are so rich, so multifaceted, it is impossible to not be moved as they make their way from one new year to another. I was shocked at how absorbing it all was, so mesmerized by the tale Columbus and company were spinning everything else going on around me didn’t matter.

Of course, musicals like this aren’t for everyone. Having never experienced the music until this picture’s screening, however, I can’t for the life me understand how anyone could dislike it. Sure some of it is a little silly (the whole light my candle, Ill give you shelter, oops I dropped my candle, here can we light another one bit got old real quick), but overall the music and songs are remarkable, sung by impassioned vocalists who really feel the emotion behind the words. The opening number, lamenting the inability to pay the rent, is a stunner, while a simply splendid titled “The Tango Maureen” is as good as anything put on film this year.

The performances are universally excellent, newcomers Dawson and Thoms fitting in nicely with their Broadway veteran counterparts. (That said, Menzel, as good as she is, is starting to look a bit too old, the others not appearing to be quite as removed from their early twenty-something characters as she is.) For me, both Pascal and Rapp are the standouts, the two of them not only belting out their songs with gusto but also delivering complex power-packed emotional performances. I was also quite impressed with Martin, never realizing this television detective was also a fervent singer able to emote in song with such painfully impassioned brio.

Not that “Rent” is perfect. This may be the best directing job Columbus has ever done, but that still doesn’t mean he gets everything right. The syrup comes through a bit too much, especially towards the end, while a major bit in a restaurant goes on so long and is so exceedingly over-directed (with an especially awful slow motion shot near the end almost too much to bear) I couldn’t wait for it to end. Overall, though, the man does finally come through on a picture, Columbus letting Larson’s story (adapted for the screen by Stephen Chbosky) and the actors’ performances speak for themselves.

I’m a realist. I totally get that the commercial prospects of a big, loud, sometimes messy musical about AIDS set during the holidays won’t be everyone’s Thanksgiving cup of tea. But when something is this good and this entertaining it probably should be. Better than “Phantom of the Opera” (not that this is a difficult thing to accomplish), and almost as good (but not quite) as “Moulin Rouge” and “Chicago,” if any movie can help keep this new cinematic age of movie musicals alive then by gawd it should be this. For me, this is indeed a season of love, a season to fall in love with “Rent.”