The Greatest Showman, 2017.
Directed by Michael Gracey.
Starring Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Michelle Williams, Paul Sparks, Diahann Carroll, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo.
SYNOPSIS:
We meet a young Phineas Taylor Barnum, whose father is a tailor. Barnum and his father visit rich people’s houses, where Barnum becomes enamoured with Charity, the daughter of one of his father’s customers. Barnum is poor, but he promises Charity that he will make his fortune and come back for her, in song of course. Barnum fulfils that promise when he turns into Hugh Jackman (and Charity becomes the always excellent Michelle Williams) and the two run off and get married. Barnum eventually procures a museum which he then begins to fill with the most unusual people he can find — bearded ladies, tattooed men, acrobats, very tall, and very small people, and the modern circus is born.
The Greatest Showman is this year’s musical offering, directed by Michael Gracey (in his directorial debut) and starring Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya, and Rebecca Ferguson in what is undoubtedly the best circus musical of the year, if not, ever. A thin plot and some unconvincing character arcs let down a movie that, with a little bit more focus, could be great. It ends up feeling slightly long at ninety minutes and a lot less fun than you would hope.
This is a film about outsiders. Barnum takes people who have no place in the world and includes them, puts them out there for everyone to see. All this feels pretty timely and it definitely goes down well in 2017 (we’re all happy to forget that the “freakshow” of the time was not done to be inclusive). Barnum is given to us as an outsider along with the real outsiders, and their makeshift family is about as cohesive as the film gets. Zac Efron, AKA Hugh Jackman junior, is great as the snooty playwright, Phillip Carlyle, who runs off to join the circus. Barnum is hoping that Carlyle will give him the legitimacy he so craves, and the chance to join the upper echelons of society.
Unfortunately, the story is jumbled and feels very much like a biography with a fair bit of airbrushing (a cursory look into Barnum’s life would seem to confirm this). The plot is also very thin, but there is plenty of entertainment, the songs are good (written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul who wrote the La La Land songs that won them an Oscar this year) and it is obvious to anyone that this is a film that was made with great passion.
There are moments — circus moments — where the CGI is truly dodgy. We got along for years with very dodgy CGI, but we live in a different world now, a world where Andy Serkis can give more convincing performances as an ape that most actors can give as a human, so dodgy circus elephants aren’t really cool anymore.
If musicals are your thing — there really are some great songs — as well as an enjoyable ensemble performance, and the ever-charismatic Hugh Jackman, then The Greatest Showman is worth checking out. The passion of the filmmakers and the cast is tangible, even with a confused and tedious story.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Rachael Kaines
Originally published December 20, 2017. Updated April 19, 2018.
