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Hugh Jackman excels in The Greatest Showman, like a Broadway show bought straight to film |
Director: Michael Gracey
Cast: Hugh Jackman (PT Barnum), Michelle Williams (Charity
Hallett-Barnum), Zac Efron (Philip Carlyle), Rebecca Ferguson (Jenny Lind),
Zendaya (Anne Wheeler), Keala Settle (Lettie Lutz), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (WD
Wheeler), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Deng Yan), Paul Sparks (James Gordon Bennett),
Sam Humphrey (Charles Stratton)
In early 2018, the whole world seemed to go crazy for The Greatest Showman. A big
old-fashioned film musical that wouldn’t look out of place with Gene Kelly in
the lead, people went to the cinema again and again to see this escapist
song-and-dance epic. Based loosely on the life of PT Barnum (Hugh Jackman),
covering his marriage to childhood love Charity (Michelle Williams) and the
creation of his Museum of Curiosities (funded through some chicanery with
banks), he staffs the museum with “freaks” whom he encourages to embrace their
nature and entertain the crowds. The “circus” is a huge success, but will
Barnum be seduced by his desire for greater fame and acceptance in the cultural
high circles that have no time for his mass entertainment? And how will his
fascination with opera singer Jennie Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) affect his
marriage?
If you get the idea from that plot summary that this is
rather safe and unchallenging plot-wise, you would be right. Structurally this
doesn’t offer anything more than hundreds of musicals before it – a hero aims
for the stars, loses his roots on the way, only to triumphantly rediscover them
and remember why he got into this business in the first place. Yup that’s your
classic Hollywood plot here. And it doesn’t matter a damn.
Because The Greatest
Showman, like the shows Barnum offered the crowds, knows exactly what it
is: an old-fashioned Hollywood musical, shot like a classic piece of Broadway
spectacle, crammed to the gills with hugely exciting and dynamic musicals
performers ripping through a series of impressive songs and some stunningly
choreographed numbers. Who gives a damn if you’ve seen the story before, when it’s
so well done, the actors so engaging and the highlights on the way to brilliant
to watch. Come to this with your mind set for the West End, and you’ll love it.
Expect to see La La Land and you are
in for a disappointment (or a pleasant surprise!)
Gracey’s film is unashamedly old-fashioned, and shot with a
confident stillness that puts the actors, dancers and singers front-and-centre
rather than the flourishes of a director. In contrast to some over-directed
musical numbers, Gracey is happy to place the camera so we can see all the
numbers perfectly. And why wouldn’t he when all the actors can dance as well as
this? I want to see every step of the intricate choreography (that would have thrilled
Kelly) from Jackman and Efron in The
Other Side. I want to see every step of the thrilling group dance number From Now On. I want to marvel at Efron
and Zendaya soaring through the skies on trapeze ropes in Rewrite the Stars.
It’s a musical that chose its cast carefully, requiring that
they should all be capable of the sort of feats of physical and musical
perfection that we all enjoy watching on Strictly
every week. In all this, the snubs of the critics seems neither here nor there
– hilariously the film always commentates on its own terrible reviews in
advance (!) in the character of James Gordon Bennett, a humourless snobby
theatre reviewer – it’s a film that is shot in the arm of pure entertainment.
I mean you’d need to have a heart of pure cold not to feel
some serious emotions during Jackman and Williams’ beautiful rooftop ballet
during A Million Dreams. What I
particularly liked about this was its unabashed, carefully designed
artificiality – like a blast of 1950s Minnelli musicals, this uses painted
backdrops and studio locations to beautiful effect to create a
larger-than-life, theatrical world of hyper reality. It really helps you to get
even more swept up by it all.
But then you also get swept up from having an actor as
charismatic as Hugh Jackman in the lead. Oozing charm and grace from every
pore, Jackman is riveting in the role, his grin a mile wide, his skills as a
singer and (most especially) a dancer shown off to stunning effect. He turns
moments that could have rogueish qualities into sweetness, he is impossible not
to root for. Sure as an actor he’s not stretched with the conventional arc
Barnum has, but does that matter when he is giving this all he has. It’s a
hugely, overwhelmingly enjoyable performance of pure charisma that I can’t
imagine any other actor in Hollywood having the chutzpah to pull off. It’s so
skilled that he never overwhelms the film but you could move the whole
performance into a 1,000-seater theatre and it would still work perfectly.
The rest of the cast all lift their considerable game to
match the commitment and expertise of the lead. Williams showcases her own
musical talents, while Efron and Zendaya have a truly affecting romance at the
heart of the film (while also being considerably compelling musical
performers). Rebecca Ferguson has the least rewarding role (and is also dubbed
for the high soprano singing), but does a decent job as someone you could
imagine turning Barnum’s head. The rest of the cast playing assorted circus
performers create a truly family atmosphere, with Keala Settle and Sam Humphrey
particularly fine.
You could argue that the film – with its message of
acceptance and lack of judgement – flies a little bit in the face of the real
Barnum (“there’s a sucker born every minute”) who probably was partly
exploiting his acts for cash. The treatment of Jennie Lind as an increasingly
scheming would-be-seductress is a sad slur on a woman who gave most of her
earnings to charity. In fact you wish all
the names had been changed to distance us from reality.
But the film gets away with it because it is basically a
heartfelt and genuine piece of work that, most of all, like a huge Broadway
musical just wants to entertain the audience. And on that score it works –
you’ll get invested in the characters and their story and you’ll find yourself
humming the songs afterwards and trying (failing) to dance those steps. Go into
it in the right mindset, and you’ll find a delight.
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