The Greatest Showman Review

4 Stars

 

“Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed.”  Phineas Taylor Barnum, best known today as simply P.T. Barnum, was born in 1810 in Bethel, Connecticut.  In his early 20s, Barnum was a small business owner and founder of a weekly newspaper.  He moved to New York in 1934 where his entertainment career began when he purchased Scudder's American Museum that he renamed after himself and transformed into a "freak show" playing on human curiosity with features like the Feejee mermaid and General Tom Thumb.  Later in life, Barnum returned to Connecticut where he served as Mayor in 1875.  He was an author, publisher, politician, businessman, and philanthropist, but is best remembered for his showmanship.  It is that achievement that has inspired the new musical The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum.

If you have read any of my previous Previews or Reviews for films based on actual events or people, I have given up on doing too much research beforehand as the movies often take many creative liberties with regards to the timeline of events, the location of events, characters involved, roles they played, and more.  And they have every right to do so as the films make no claims to be historically accurate or documentaries.  The Greatest Showman is based on the life of P.T. Barnum, specifically in regards to his creation of the Barnum & Bailey Circus dubbed The Greatest Show on Earth.

Hugh Jackman tackles the title role of Barnum and he is no stranger to singing on stage or in film.  Jackman grew up a theatre performer in Australia including musicals.  The world was exposed to his singing abilities in 2012 with his role as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, a performance that earned him the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor.  Jackman received both praise and criticism for his vocal performance.  I was one of the critics asking the question "Were you impressed with the performances in Les Miserables because you wouldn't expect Wolverine and Gladiator to be able to sing like that, or did you really think they gave the performances you would expect if you had paid $500 to watch this on Broadway?"  Jackman has already been nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance in The Greatest Showman and I enjoyed his singing as Barnum more than I liked his Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

Zac Efron's leading man roles in his career to date have been campy, goofy and sophomoric starring in such movies as Neighbors 1 and 2, Dirty Grandpa, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, and Baywatch.  He is slated to play a completely opposite role as Ted Bundy in a film titled Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile that could really reshape his career and propel him to a much higher platform possibly opening many more "meaty" roles for the young actor.  His performance in The Greatest Showman was definitely a huge step in the right direction to separate him as more than just the goofball in crude comedies.

Last year, when La La Land came out, I said we were long overdue for a new musical and La La Land was hopefully the first of many.  Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul took home the Oscar for Original Song with their creation of "City of Stars" from La La Land.  They're back and have written the original music for The Greatest Showman and I would be surprised if they didn't get at least one more Oscar nomination this year as it was the music that really stole the show.  The Greatest Showman features a modern pop feel as team Pasek and Paul did not confine themselves to the 1830's when the film is set.  It was a risk, but a risk that paid off.  If they tried to fit the songs to the era of the film, I don't think this movie would have worked at all.

I was excited for The Greatest Showman and had high expectations.  I gave a 4.5 Star Prediction as I anticipated thoroughly enjoying Jackman and Efron's performances along with co-stars Michelle Williams and Zendaya, the music, and the spectacle from director Michael Gracey who literally made his big screen debut.  He's so green, he doesn't even have a completed biography on IMDB.  I had a feeling this would just the beginning for Gracey after a hugely successful Greatest Showman.  I thought this movie was sweet, charming, electric, exciting, fun, and sensitive.  However, I felt it should have been about 20 minutes longer than its 1 hour and 44 minute running time.  Barnum didn't come from anything at all and swept his wife away from a lavish, wealthy lifestyle.  She didn't care about the money.  Their apartment had a leaky roof and no frills at all, but she and their two daughters were happy.  After losing another job, Barnum took a risk and convinced a bank to loan him $10,000 so he could purchase a macabre wax museum figuring that human's morbid curiosity would draw them in.  His daughters pointed out that it wasn't enough.  He needed live spectacles.  He agreed and searched for the outcasts, the freaks.  He found his Tom Thumb, a bearded lady, the World's Fattest Man, the Irish Giant, the acrobat brother and sister, and many more.  And it worked.  People lined up and shows were sold out to see something no one had ever seen before.

Barnum teamed up with the legitimate theatre producer Phillip Carlyle (Efron) to raise their show to the next level.  It takes some convincing but Carlyle gets on board and it isn't long before their entire troop gets an audience with the British Queen.  It's there that I feel the movie started rushing things.  Providing a better life, a bigger home, ballet lessons, fancy clothes soon wasn't enough for Barnum.  He became obsessed with people's opinions about how he obtained his wealth.  In England, they meet famed European opera singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) and convince her to tour the United States as promoted by Barnum.  At her first performance, Barnum became infatuated with the "legitimate" adulation she received and started hiding his band of freaks to the shadows.  It is Carlyle who first questioned Barnum, though he himself wasn't ready to be fully associated with them.  His inner conflict was growing, however, as he had fallen in love with acrobat Anne Wheeler (Zendaya). 

Barnum quite abruptly abandoned his circus as Carlyle abruptly became an outcast to his family and his upper crust associates as he fully embraced his new family in Barnum's absence.  Almost as quickly as Barnum threw the origins of his success aside, he flipped a 180 and left Lind to finish her American tour without him so he could return to his wife, his children and his circus family.  Local protestors threatened to permanently end their dream, but Carlyle's investments saved the day and the show went on. 

I really only had two big issues with The Greatest Showman.  As described above, the flip-flopping of allegiance of both Barnum and Carlyle could have used a little more time in the film to develop and transition.  The second was the character of Tom Thumb as played by actor Sam Humphrey, an Australian actor with a skeletal disorder that keeps the 22-year-old actor at a height of 4'3" tall.  But that wasn't short enough for the film as they digitally shortened his legs by what appears to be 6 to 8 inches.  The problem is that you can tell he was digitally altered in every full-body shot he is in.  He is also obviously missing from some wider shot scenes, when he should be in them.  During the number "This is me", the cast of freaks are out in the public streets all performing together.  He is there during close-up scenes, but when the camera pulls out, he is noticeably absent.

Other than that, the songs really made this show a spectacle and truly entertaining.  It starts with an anthemic performance by Hugh Jackman of the show's opening song "The Greatest Show" that has a similar feel to Queen's "We Will Rock You".  Efron and Jackman were the perfect pair in their duet in the bar as they sang "The Other Side".  Efron had a very heart-felt, sweet, sincere, beautiful duet with Zendaya as they battled with their feelings for each other as they sang "Rewrite the Stars".  And the Bearded Lady Lettie Lutz (Keala Settle) led the cast of the circus in a triumphant singing of "This is Me".  While the movie sold itself short in it's character and story execution, a shortcoming that really could have been fixed easily with about 20 minutes more, it more than redeemed those downfalls with some amazing original music that should get a couple Oscar nominations and probably one of them taking home the trophy.  So, I predicted 4.5 stars for The Greatest Showman, I'm going to lower it just slightly to 4.0 Stars.  It was definitely worth the money in the theatre, I'd see it again, and I'll be owning this once it comes out.  So, what movie will be on my mind next? We Shall See.