Do you like sugar-coated, melodramatic versions of historical figures? How do you feel about pop musicals? Do you fancy talented singers having their voices smoothed out with auto-tuning? If your answers to those questions are positive, The Greatest Showman is the movie for you. Otherwise, you can probably skip it.
The Greatest Showman is far from the worst-made movie you could have seen this year. It's competent enough to pass as a mildly entertaining big-budget Hollywood production. It's colorful and whimsical and has lots of people smiling big white smiles and being happy. So maybe it's good enough for a certain audience. But as a period piece, it fails. As a musical, it fails. As a biopic, it fails. And as an empathetic character study, it fails.
Showman is all about P. T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman), founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, and how he rose to fame. Starting in his childhood, the movie emphasizes Barnum’s poverty and his aspiration to follow a dream, summed up in a sudden and out-of-place, weirdly romantic musical number between two child actors. One of them is, of course, young Barnum, and the other is his future wife, Charity (played as an adult by Michelle Williams). We fast forward, then, to Barnum’s adulthood, now with a family, though still poor. After executing another musical number about hopes and dreams, Barnum somehow comes up with the idea to create a sort-of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!“ museum, which then evolves into a live circus of performers and “unique” individuals. From there, it's a battle for acceptance, not only for Barnum as an entertainer and artist, but for his performers as members of society as well. This is an admirable enough theme for 2017, I guess, even if the real Barnum probably couldn't have cared less if the “freaks” in his show were treated fairly by others.
The biggest problem that bogs Showman down into the realm of mediocrity is artifice. Hardly a moment of the movie feels real or even emotionally convincing. There are a few fleeting exceptions, like some of the occasional voice inflections and sad looks Zendaya and Zac Efron give each other, playing an acrobat and an actor, respectively, who fall in love during their time in the circus. Another exception is the majority of Jackman’s performance. Despite the PC-coating on the characterization of Barnum, there's an honestness in Jackman’s face that says he really means what he says. You might not believe everything the movie throws at you, but you might just believe that Jackman believes it, and that's enough to conjure up just the smallest, occasional bits of movie magic. Aside from those moments, however, Showman feels incredibly false. This most likely has to do with the style of music chosen. It sounds like that late 2000s/early 2010s stadium pop that we have all caught ourselves singing along to in the car, and then quickly rebuked ourselves for stooping so low. It clashes horribly against the 19th century backdrop. It may have worked better if a more unique genre had been chosen for the music. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, for instance, takes the aggressive, lyrical attitude of hip-hop to match the passion and conviction of Alexander Hamilton. But that recent era of Top 40 pop is just so devoid of personality and nuance, bastardizing other genres’ musical techniques and watering them down into repetitive electronic imitations. Choosing that as the overall sound for Showman just feels like a cheap way to connect with a modern, young audience on a very basic level. I'm honestly not even sure if there are real instruments in the music. It all sounds exactly like that vague-synth-orchestra-with-booming-stock-drums stuff you hear from, say, Katy Perry. Additionally, as mentioned before, every singer sounds auto-tuned. Why in the world does Hugh Jackman, of all people, need to be auto-tuned? The music just feels kind of heartless, which is ironic, given that the movie is all about heart and passion and finding the best in people. Those themes fall flat because the music spits on them.
The non-musical portions are less aggravating, but hardly impressive. The dialogue/characterization is mostly just functional, to serve the intended plot. For all its winking simplicity and phony innocence, The Greatest Showman has one honest performance in Jackman. Aside from him, it all feels like fluff.
There's another issue that I want to talk about, as I've found that it's a recurring feeling I've had in some movies recently. The issue is emotional resonance vs emotional manipulation. To cite a previous example, I felt this way about some moments in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. In the film—which I have criticized in the past for having nonsensical, inconsistent character development, and for frequently having its characters say things that are totally out of character—there were a few of emotional moments which had me almost teary-eyed, totally convinced by the drama of the moment. But when I stopped to think about it, the mostly poor characterization throughout the film had developed almost no connection between me and the characters—something I usually consider essential in drawing an emotional reaction out of me—so why was I almost crying? Well, the lighting, pacing, brief flits of trembling emotion in the actors' faces, and music had all been very carefully constructed to cue me in to it being a pivotal emotional moment. Almost like triggers.
That's also how I felt for the last 20 or so minutes of Showman. There were indeed a couple of moments where I felt somewhat moved. But it didn't once feel deserved; it felt coaxed. The songs swelled on the right chords, just as the light flashed warm yellow, and as two key characters stared at each other through tears, reflecting on their relationship. It's like cinematic emotion in a bottle.
I get it, if people fall for this movie, because I know most people aren't aware of how or when a movie is trying to manipulate it's viewer, or maybe they just don't care. The manipulation is enough. It is entertainment, after all, so perhaps I should get off my horse. But for someone with a more cynical eye, like me, or even someone who would expect to gain a genuine connection with a character, Showman never quite draws real empathy.
In short, it's High School Musical in the 19th century. Do with that what you will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXCTMGYUg9A&w=585