I love musicals; and in recent years we’ve been treated to a number of great ones – ‘Jersey Boys’, ‘Into the Woods’, ‘Moana’ and ‘Sing Street’ to name but a few. With that in mind it has to be said that The Greatest Showman was one of my best film of 2017.
Loosely based on the life of P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman, ‘Les Miserables’), The Greatest Showman is an original musical which tells the story of a boy who had nothing who grew up to become a man who had everything. Some people would call Barnum somewhat of a con artist; however there are also those who might rather call him a visionary. When he found himself suddenly out of work he had to think of a way in which he could continue to support his young family. His bright idea was to put on a show in which people could come to see things they had never seen before. It began with exotic animals before evolving to include human oddities. For some people this form of entertainment was a fun night out. Unfortunately however, Barnum’s circus managed to rub some people up the wrong way.
The plot for this movie is fine. It takes us on a journey through Barnum’s life, from a young boy having to steal to eat, to a confident man blessed with a beautiful family and a successful production. It had humour as well as drama and painted a majestic picture of a man who wasn’t afraid to dream big. In a musical like this however, it was always going to live or die on the music.
Jackman has been very vocal about the fact that the songs in The Greatest Showman are 100% original; and that has to be admired. It’s not easy to ask an audience to go along with a bunch of songs they’ve never heard before.
Imagine if you went to see your favourite band and all they sang was new material. Personally I’m torn when it comes to this film’s songs. On the one hand I did enjoy most of them; and have since listened to the soundtrack. However, the choice to make the music almost exclusively pop did leave me a tad disappointed. I was hoping for a more traditional musical theatre style, but that wasn’t the direction they went.
One song in particular I desperately hope receives an Oscar nomination. This is Me, which is performed by the bearded woman (Keala Settle, ‘Ricki and the Flash’), is a stunning song with a truly incredible vocal. In the context of the movie it was very powerful and emotional; and rivals Evermore from ‘Beauty and the Beast’ as my favourite song of that year.
I thought the ensemble cast was very good. To be frank (and I hate to say it) nobody particularly stood out as excellent for me; but I think that was largely because the movie was very fair in allowing all the major characters their opportunity to be in the spotlight. It was one of those rare movies where there were (in my opinion) no bad performances and the film as a whole benefitted from spreading the songs around.
Jackman is probably most famous for playing Wolverine in the ‘X-Men’ franchise; however I think his real talent is as a song and dance man. He has a past in musical theatre and brought it to the screen in Les Miserables, for which he was Oscar nominated. This movie gave him the chance to do what he clearly loves. We also see Zac Efron (High School Musical) singing and dancing, which is what I think he’s best at as well. Efron frustrates me because I know that he can be a great actor when he’s not wasting his time in stupid comedies. He should be doing more films like this. There’s no doubt whatsoever that this is one of his best performances in years.
As for the women I thought Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea), who plays Mrs Charity Barnum, was really good, as was Zendaya (Spiderman: Homecoming) and Rebecca Ferguson (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation).
All three of these ladies had supporting roles, but in each case I think they made the absolute most out of them. I read that Zendaya did all her own acrobatics, which is very impressive; but it was Ferguson in particular who shocked me with her voice which (if it was actually her singing) was amazing. Although, my one issue with her character was that she was introduced as an opera singer, but then sang with a pop voice. It was very good, but didn’t fit with the character she was presented as.
When ‘La La Land’ did so well at the awards ceremonies in 2016 I had hoped that it would allow for more (and better) musicals to be brought to the cinema screens. Although I did prefer The Greatest Showman to ‘La La Land’, it’s still a long way behind the likes of ‘Les Miserables’ or even ‘High School Musical’, which (and I know many of you will disagree) were both near perfect musicals. That said, The Greatest Showman is a very good film and is certainly worth a watch if you enjoy musicals. It’ll be interesting to see whether I like it even better on a second viewing now that I know the songs better.
Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/316029-the-greatest-showman?language=en-US
Movie Critic: AAA
Movie Rating: 8/10