Year: 2017
Director: Michael Gracey
A lot of critics had a lot of very bad things to say about The Greatest Showman, but mainly they criticised what it’s not. What it’s not is a serious biography of PT Barnum. It’s not subtle. It’s not at all fleshed-out or characterful.
While these are all points that certainly apply, they’re hardly valid criticism when the film itself shows not the slightest interest in hitting those particular markers. This is a movie where at one point plot exposition is relegated to a sign propped up in the background of a song. Almost all of the important storytelling beats, in fact, turn up during songs, a cinematic sleight of hand that leaves a contemporary musical like La La Land looking positively leaden by comparison. During an early sequence we see the young Barnum grow up fall in love, get married and have kids of his own – all during the course of one song. Meanwhile, a reprise (we’re big on reprises in The Greatest Showman) is sung by his daughter, closing the circle.
In the absence of all that stuff that isn’t there, The Greatest Showman gambles hard on its songs, and on the set-pieces that accompany them. First thing to say is that they’re anachronistic. Much has been made of a similarity to Moulin Rouge, partly for this reason and partly because of the look of the film, but any similarities are surface-dressing only. The Greatest Showman goes pop, but it’s songs are all original compositions. More importantly, Moulin Rouge is a cat film. Smug. Pleased with itself. The Greatest Showman is a dog film, bounding up to you, bursting with energy and eager to please, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the songs.
Simple test. Did you like ‘Let it Go’ in Frozen? If not, move along. But if you did you’re really going to like The Greatest Showman. Mark Kermode complained that the songs all ‘start big and get bigger’ but he could also have pointed out the frequent references to dreams and stars and taking your hand. He could have mentioned that every song is either ‘empowering’, life-affirming’ ‘heartbroken’, and often – this being the super-concise storytelling world of The Greatest Showman – all three at the same time, and he would have meant it all as a criticism, of course.
Me? I absolutely loved the songs. Which, because the film is essentially a delivery mechanism for the songs, meant that I absolutely loved the film. I think there are close to a dozen new songs in it, and there isn’t a bad or boring one, while I’d say that four of them are future classics. You’ve probably already heard ‘This Is Me’. It’s talked about as the film’s centrepiece. I’d argue not, but that’s as maybe. The fact is it’s a song that only appeared at the tail-end of last year and it already sounds timeless. The opening number, ‘The Greatest Show’, is surely destined to be a heavyweight boxer’s walk-on music, ‘A Million Dreams’ and ‘Never Enough’ will be attempted by a million YouTube and X Factor hopefuls. I don’t mean this as an artistic recommendation, more to make the point that these songs will endure. Sure enough, the director, Michael Gracey (no, me neither) does them proud, staging them brilliantly, filling the screen in such a way that there are time you think you’re watching in 3D. Jackman is just ace – really ace, a guy you’re rooting for even when he’s being a cad – Efron, Zendaya, Williams and Ferguson all do well just to maintain a presence.
And there it is. My case stated. The best fun I’ve had at the cinema since Mad Max: Fury Road – and Fury Road didn’t make me blub or laugh nearly as much as The Greatest Showman.
Might appeal to people who enjoyed:
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I was a bit haughty about it when I saw it but your review makes me appreciate the film a bit more. There’s a bar room scene where the choreography is incredible – lightning-quick and quite funny.
Hugh Jackman playing himself as a very young man – well – film star good looks and dramaticly black hair can’t really save you when you’re at least 45 and crinkly of eye. This is also a phenomenon when someone like Natalie Portman plays an old lady – flecks of grey in hair, lines drawn under eyes., now she’s convincingly 87 years old.
If I had to watch it again, I probably would. As you say, the somgs being original is a real plus. They don’t all hit the spot but several listens might turn that around.
I’m going to be a real grump this week with my comments on Childish Gambino and this, but….. urgh. Hm. It was all right, just all right . But oh so bland and oh so sickly.
You compare it to Moulin Rouge and La La Land… well, in both of those films I got a real sense of depth of emotion and feeling I just didn’t get with this. And The Greatest Showman, crucially, doesn’t have the guts to have something Damien Chazelle and Baz Lurmann had – a sad ending.
Great review. I still have no intention of going to see it. Mind you, I rarely go to the cinema, perhaps once a year, if that.
Don’t know if you have heard of this new-fangled dvd thingie? There’s also something I believe that’s called streaming but perhaps that’s a step too far… We last went to a multiplex a few winters ago on a freezing raining night in Brighton. After finding somewhere to park that didn’t require a second mortgage and walking five minutes through the wall of rain we paid £11.50 each to enter a “cinema” not much bigger than the dining room of Chateau Lodestone. The screen admittedly was larger than at the Chateau but the sound was decidedly inferior, tinny and sometimes out of sync. I am sure that there are films like Star Wars etc that are better experienced in a giant cinema but give me home viewing every time – wine and nibbles on tap and, most of important of all given my need for frequent toilet breaks, a pause button.
Hmm. DVD you say? I’ll look into that.
Great review and I concur, it’s a fabulous, joyous entertainment. Loved it on my first viewing back in darkest January, bought the soundtrack, went again to a singalong screening. It’s a remarkable word-of-mouth, critic-proof phenomenon – I’ve never seen such a public reaction to a film since perhaps Frozen (which was essentially a young girl’s thing whereas this has attracted all ages and genders) or maybe Titanic before that. I’ve read comments on Facebook from people who have returned to see it multiple times, into the twenties and thirties…astonishing. And like Leicester says, these songs will stay around for a long time – they work independently and in context as great examples of musical theatre. The first time I heard Never Enough was heartstopping; even though I now know Rebecca Ferguson (the Swedish actress, not the singer) is miming on screen, her performance is so sympatico that it’s still entirely wondrous (perhaps the most truly Barnumesque sequence of the entire film).
This will surely be made into a genuine stage musical, sooner rather than later.
Top post — and you’re so right about Never Enough. It’s a spine-tingling moment.
After five minutes we nearly turned it off – “we are not going to be manipulated by this nonsense”: by the end we were completely won over , great fun. I still have the feeling that it has been very carefully, if not forensically, constructed using every cinematic and musical trick in the book but by heavens they have constructed it well.
Oh, I should have mentioned that, at least to my ears, several songs have the feel of Queen-like anthems like We Are The Champions. Not normally my cup of tea but in this context it works surprisingly well
Turns out that so many folk got in touch with Mark Kermode to tell him he was off-beam with his initial review that he went back to see the film in a normal-not-press-screening cinema.
Excellent review, Mr Bangs, which really made me want to see the film. Your enthusiasm is very infectious.
Loved the story about Mark Kermode. Respect to him for realizing that he had got it wrong. I must watch a few more of his reviews.
There is a thread to be had here on the difference an audience can make to our cinema experience.
Musical? Hell, no. Even if Michael Crawford is in it.
Music hell, more like.