The Greatest Showman

The Greatest Showman

Starring Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya

Directed by Michael Gracey

The Story:
As a child, P.T. Barnum was a poor boy who fell for rich socialite Charity, and as their forbidden love blossomed over the years, they decided that living a life together was more important than money.  After they got married and had two kids, P.T. (Hugh Jackman) looses his job and desires a wealthy life for his wife (Michelle Williams) and his children.  He takes a risk on an idea and builds Barnum's American Museum in New York City and finds the social outcasts - a bearded lady, a lumbering giant, a little person, and so on - to appear in his show.  Audiences crowded the theater to see something they've never seen before, and despite protests from people who didn't want to see "freaks" on stage, Barnum's circus takes off, showing that everyone has a place in the spotlight.

The Synopsis:
As the film opens, we're treated to a rousing rendition of "The Greatest Show," with Hugh Jackman addressing the audience: "Ladies and gents, this is the moment you've waited for."

It was, indeed, the moment we've been waiting for.

There's been a lot of talk this past year about the power critics have over films, especially from websites like rottentomatoes.com.  It's killed certain films ("Baywatch" and "The Dark Tower" immediately come to mind) when the reviews came out before it was released to the public, and people avoided them because the critics hated it.  To a high degree, the critics were right.  However, there were times they were wrong, and "The Greatest Showman" is the greatest example of that fact.

Critics from Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an abysmal 55%, with the consensus saying "The Greatest Showman tries hard to dazzle the audience with a Barnum-style sense of wonder -- but at the expense of its complex subject's far more intriguing real-life story."  Meanwhile, the audience score from Rotten Tomatoes rates it at...90%!  That's a vast gulf between critics and audiences, and most of that is due to the critics' take on what they expected from the film, and what was actually delivered.


"The Greatest Showman" is a very loose adaptation of P.T. Barnum's life and how he founded the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, set to the tone of a musical, which means it's absolutely not a biopic by any stretch of the imagination.  Barnum wasn't the nicest person in the world (he got his start as a showman by buying a blind, paralyzed slave and saying she was George Washington's nurse), and the film obviously glosses over certain uncouth aspects of his life.  Still, as I said earlier, this isn't an intense biopic along the lines of "Schindler's List" or "Raging Bull," but rather a family-friendly musical that churned the same magic Barnum released during his show.  While critics went wanting to see a more in-depth, deeply woven character study, they instead got a toe-tapping showstopper that they weren't prepared for.

Oscar winners Justin Paul and Benj Pasek were brought in to write the lyrics for the movie, and much as they added a sense of magic to last year's "La La Land," they once again delivered a magical movie-going experience, but with a different sense of magic.  Even though the film takes place in the 1800s, the songs were geared for modern pop numbers, but that only added to the sense of wonder, and as Barnum was ahead of his time, so the songs sung were ahead of their time in the film as well. 

It's these songs that are the heartbeat of the film.  Musicals are an interesting sort, as you're pretty much forced to suspend all sense of belief.  You're not going to see a crowd of people singing outside their cars on a Los Angeles highway, but musicals have a way of making you feel like you just might.  Many people said of "La La Land" that if you took out all the musical  numbers, you'd have a pretty dull movie, and they're not wrong - it's a musical, it's supposed to have singing!  The same can be said for "The Greatest Showman" - the film glosses over many aspects of Barnum's life, giving nary a thought of potentially life-changing events.  But - unlike the heavily lauded "All Eyez On Me" - this wasn't a biopic.  It's a musical, plain and simple. 

It's rare that a musical has every song hit on point, and even more rare that the songs resonate in a deeply emotional way.  Yet every single song in "The Greatest Showman" encompassed both those impossibilities with ease.  The title song is an uplifting beat about seeing something new.  The Hugh Jackman-Zac Efron duet "The Other Side" has some of the best choreography I've seen in recent memory, while Rebecca Ferguson (actually it was her lip-syncing to Loren Allred) stops the show with "Never Enough."  Keala Settle (who plays the bearded lady Lettie Lutz) cracks the emotional core of the film with the Golden Globe nominated song "This is Me," while Zac Efron and Zendaya perform "Rewrite the Stars" to the second best choreography I've seen in recent memory (the first, obviously, being "The Other Side").  All eleven songs are powerful and memorable in their own right, and I found myself often toe-tapping to them.  If I wasn't comfortable in a recliner (and if it wouldn't have been distracting to other movie-going patrons), I might've been inclined to stand up and dance. 

That is the real magic of this film.  In a world today that's filled with uncertainty, doubt, poverty, meanness, self-absorption, and void of purpose - a world of black and white - "The Greatest Showman" dares to show us a world of living color, a world of hope and promise, a world where the freaks and the outcasts are paraded front and center for all to see.  It is its own magic, one that you don't see in movies nowadays (or outside the movies now either, since the magic of the circus officially ended in May of 2017, when the curtain closed on the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus after 146 years). 

While certain musicals cast people who are more famous but less adapt at singing and dancing, the cast for "The Greatest Showman" seemed to be born for their roles.  Even though most people know him as Wolverine, Hugh Jackman got his start in musical theater, has won a Tony, and has hosted the Tony Awards for three years.  He earned an Oscar nomination for his performance in "Les Miserables" in 2012, and this has been his pet project he's been wanting to do since 2009.  He was born to play Barnum, and does so brilliantly - he'll undoubtedly earn another nomination here.  I didn't think Michelle Williams could sing, but she amazed me with her vocal talents as well.

Zac Efron and Zendaya are well-known to the younger generation, as Efron made his start in the Disney trilogy "High School Musical," while Zendaya has had a recording contract for years.  Both shed their youthful naivete for more adult roles here, as both their voices have matured to a beautiful level that is deeply moving - especially their powerful duet "Rewrite the Stars." 

Yet the standout scene stealer went to Keala Settle, who played the bearded lady Lettie Lutz.  Settle is a Broadway veteran, nominated for a Tony Award, and absolutely nailed her performance here.  When Barnum found her, she was hiding behind a sheet at her job, ashamed and afraid to face the public.  Thanks to his prodding, she took center stage and grew in confidence to the point where she wasn't ashamed of who she was anymore - as evidenced in her powerful rendition of "This is Me."

The song "The Greatest Show" continues with: "so tell me do you wanna go where it's covered in all the colored lights?  Where the runaways are running the night?  Impossible comes true, it's taking over you, this is the greatest show."  This is indeed the greatest show, a true magical tour-de-force from start to finish, that manages to bring a smile to your face and make you feel like a child again.

The Summary:
From start to finish, "The Greatest Showman" had that special magic that's missing in modern cinema, and even though it wasn't heavy with the dramatics, it did what Barnum intended it to - make you leave the theater smiling and feeling happy.

The Score: A+