a fun spectacle of a movie that requires some suspension of disbelief
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (2017)
Director: Michael Gracey
Screenplay: Jessica Bicks, Bill Condon
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Zendaya, Zac Efron
Summary: An original musical that celebrates the birth of show business & tells of a visionary, PT Barnum, who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
(Spoiler-free till the word “SPOILERS” appears)
right so the wikipedia page for The Greatest Showman says that it’s an “American historical period drama musical film”. which, okay, i guess? We watched this movie together and we can’t deny that it’s fun to watch — it’s a feel-good movie that cares less about plotholes, and more about ferrying the audience from music video to music video. Both of us agree that it’s a great family film, great for friends going out specifically to not use your brain for 2 hours. Or, I guess, to look at Zac Efron’s face, which is a Nice Face, tho he still looks like Troy Bolton from 13 years ago (gasp, right? he’s 30 this year)
Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re not looking at it critically haha: there were some issues with plot & story that we want to bring up, but because spoilers! so it’s in the comments. So moving away from plot, let’s talk about the songs! which were key because it’s a musical, so songs > coherence. They were catchy and fun and the kind that the production company can continue to sell long after the movie is out of theatres. And, well, it wasn’t really a surprise, because Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who provided the song score, worked on La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen. Their work on the former won them an Original Song Oscar, and for the latter they got a Tony for their original score. So, yeah, these guys know exactly what they’re doing. The only problem with the songs at times were that they weren’t exactly…. emotional. These are songs about strength, about love and about being different. Characters didn’t sing when they were down or sad or worried about the future - which is fine, but not really fulfilling the potential of a musical. The only song that was used to its full potential was A Million Dreams (the first one). We figured that it represents hope for the future and love (from the lyrics), and the tune is repeated at choice scenes later in the movie to reinforce that connection. which is great! Also, stunts + singing is actually really exhilarating to watch, so keep an eye out for Zac Efron and Zendaya’s trapeze sequence. —
On editing: transitions were well-done and smooth! We can’t spoil but we loved the first transition time-skip!! The camera spins around with Hugh Jackman the centre, in what’s called an Orbital Shot, giving us a full view of a beautiful (CGI) spectacle. The fade-out was smooth and hardly noticeable, so yes, we were very happy.
tbh we don’t have much to say that is spoiler-free — if you’ve watched the movie / don’t mind spoilers, head down to the comments! we promise it’s not (really) a rant.
RATING: 6.5 / 10
SPOILERS
2 main problems:
realism vs the spectacle
as mentioned before, “American historical period drama musical film”. so… historical accuracy much? I mean, we get that you wanna make money, but so much CGI and auto-tune is kind of cutting it close. It’s just,, a bit hard to believe. The whole movie just seems to skirting the line between ‘fake’ and ‘believable’, and after a while it gets kind of frustrating because Nothing Is Real. As in, 19th century New York looks like they tried to CGI but didn’t bother making it look realistic. There’s a scene in the first romance-waltz sequence w Barnum and his wife and the moon pops up from behind some buildings, looking so big and 2D that we couldn’t help but laugh. Another scene when he’s rushing back to his wife and has to run to get on a train? the train is so very unrealistic that we just. couldn’t buy it. And! while that’s happening, the circus troupe is back at the same bar, singing the same song, all the way till Barnum reaches his house in the countryside. ok. Also? Jenny Lind was an opera singer. that means. o p e r a liek real opera. The Greatest Showman is a movie that knows that you know that it’s all fake, and doesn’t try to convince you otherwise. It isn’t a world that you step into — more like a pop-up book that brings the colour and spectacle but doesn’t bring you deeper. And that’s exactly why the movie feels like a collection of music videos stringed together. The narrative isn’t the priority, it’s the supposed “musical” that matters more.
plot continuity
that kind of leads us to this writing problem(s) that just. hgngng. Because it decides that it’s not going to convince the audience that any of this is real, it doesn’t bother with plot points or tying up loose ends either. like, okay, we’re just gonna list them all:
A. they spent the entire first act on how barnum worked really hard to be worthy of his wife and give her a good life, then reinforcing our understanding of their strong love with a dance and singing sequence. Then, later in the movie, we speed through the fall-out from Jenny Lind without any focus on how this affects their relationship. All we see is Charity going home to her parents and then a song later she forgives him, without him even having to tell her that Nothing Happened and that Lind was the one who instigated it.
B. The daughter and ballet: it was nice that we started with her wanting ballet shoes, and they followed it up by having Barnum give her ballet shoes and send her to ballet school. But after that debacle where her friends insult her and she says she doesn’t want to do ballet anymore, the next time ballet is mentioned is when Barnum is showing off to his in-laws, and the girl just outright says that she’s doing it. Like, ok, if you’ve sowed the seeds for conflict then at least resolve it, or show us how she got to the conclusion that she wants to continue.
C. When Barnum gets all caught up with Lind, he hosts a party after her performance for all the aristocrats to come and meet her. Then, when his circus troupe wants to enter the room to participate and get drunk, he literally shuts the door in their faces. Which is a Really Big Deal because he’s the one who asked them to put themselves out there despite all the hate and the ridicule. He said “they’ll love you”, a line he explicitly repeats to Lind — the movie wants us to feel that Barnum is edging towards choosing Lind over his original troupe, and wants us to be worried. But after he shuts the door in their faces, the circus troupe just gallivants off to sing about being unafraid of showing the world who they are (oh, but This Is Me is an amazing song). Hmm, ok so. We’re just gonna pretend nothing happened? We don’t see any confrontation or any anger on the part of the circus troupe, which kinda sucks because the height of the conflict should have been when Barnum loses Everything - his family, his troupe, his cash cow (Lind). But he doesn’t, because a song later, we’re all friends again.
D. Not really a big issue but we thought that they could’ve gone a lot deeper into the rags to riches story? Because that’s essentially what they touted the movie to be, but instead we get a spectacular colourful movie-video extravaganza, which does make us happy but doesn’t really give us anything to take away. There was some hint that because he was a poor boy at the start, he didn’t want his family to be treated like scum and so worked really hard to fit in with the aristocrats (there was a monologue about this to his wife, but that’s it) We thought that they could’ve been a lot more detailed about it. For example! have Barnum have a confrontation with the circus troupe about him shutting them out of the room at Jenny Lind’s afterparty (thereby solving problem C), and then have him clearly say that something like “it’s too much! /you’re/ all too much! (glances back at party) look, we have a reputation to uphold, and—“
“you mean /you/ have a reputation to uphold,” says the bearded lady. “what happened to ‘No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else? huh? you just wanted to use us to build yourself up and keep chasing after the rich and the famous. so what? now you’re gonna leave us all behind?”
Barnum shuts the door, tries not to think about it, and the show goes on (the confrontation is followed by This Is Me, tho it should start on a more sombre note) until Lind tries to kiss him, he thinks back to what the bearded lady said, and decides to come back and apologise. End of story. Moral of the story: be yourself, and you don’t have to keep chasing after the approval of the socially “accepted” to be successful
done! comment if u disagree/agree/wanna yell at us
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