The Greatest Showman

Biopic films often need to find that correct balance of historically accurate and cinematic pandering material to produce something that can act as a faithful retelling of a certain event or person’s life while also containing aspects that either fluff up an otherwise standard/untold part of the story, or act as a crux for showing off this particular true story. Having historical fiction in an otherwise true story doesn’t always have to be a bad thing, and it surprisingly happens a lot more than expected in most biopic films, but what matters is keeping the point and meaning of the true story in centre focus, and making any made-up elements not feel distractingly out-of-place in comparison to the true stuff. The 2017 musical biopic, The Greatest Showman fails at both of these. Within the 1800s, P.T. Barnum (played by Hugh Jackman) lives with his wife, Charity (played by Michelle Williams) and two daughters in a home full of love and wonder, but little financial stability due to Barnum’s poor status. Desperate to earn enough money to satisfy his family, he scams his way into getting a museum which he hopes to use to open up a circus which celebrates various types of people that are deemed unnatural or at worst ‘’freaks’’. He begins to build a group of attractions to use for his circus, including a bearded lady named Lettie (played by Keala Settle), a trapeze artist named Anne (played by Zendaya) and various others with unique components, all of which he plans to orchestrate with the help of rich playwright, Phillip Carlyle (played by Zac Efron). After gaining popularity and criticism among the public, Barnum continues to wallow in the high life ultimately resulting in him distancing himself from his family and his real work, focusing more on the star opera singer, Jenny Lind (played by Rebecca Ferguson). He’ll need to realize what all of this work was for in the first place and return to his old lifestyle before he loses his true treasure (his family) for good. Based very loosely on the real P.T. Barnum and the creation of his museum and circus, this movie is one of the most conflicting experiences to ever go through. There are very few movies out there that exhibit a similar level of amazing kinetic passion and energy, all helped out with passionate performances, a vibrant color palette, and fantastic music, choreography, and sets. All of this has to battle with a screenplay and a story so garbage, it makes it impossible to call this movie good.

Just from the trailers of this movie, it gave off a pretty clear sign that this was not going to try and actually tell the story of P.T. Barnum, but rather use it as an excuse to tell an ”ugly duckling” story while using the‘’true story’’ as a selling point for a reason to watch it. The fact that the majority of this movie is only about 5% of what the actual P.T Barnum contributed to the world, and even that percent is mostly fabricated or told incorrect, isn’t as awful as it could be. If the movie wanted to nix a lot of the true story and focus solely on the circus element, it can do that fine and fictionalize a story around that to personify the core message of what that show represented. The problem is not really in how much is fake, but rather how much is obviously fake and how horrifically awful its portrayed. The screenplay for this movie handled by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon is so dreadful that even kindergarten cartoons have more complex storylines that what this movie has to offer. The movie gives off a very phony environment that never feels truthful in any way, shape, or form; like everybody is living in fairy land where the good people are ‘’wistful dreamers filled with jolly sunshine’s and rainbows’’ and the evil people are ‘’big bad mean people who don’t allow for those of an odd degree’’, and the film could’ve worked with that if the writing didn’t carry with it an equal amount of simplistic thinking and went more outside the box with what it presented. This atmosphere feels so fake and fabricated, and the cliches used in this movie are so obvious and so clearly made-up that it takes away any sense of believability and makes it feel incredibly shallow and faux-like. The movie clearly means well and has a good message about not hiding your true selves, but it would be much more impactful if the movie remembered that lesson and stuck truer to itself and not have to rely on bad cliches and rom-com drama to sell a movie musical about a real person.

The life of P.T Barnum sounded like one that has a lot of complexities to it, and one that definitely wouldn’t fit in this ‘’barbie doll fantasy’’ environment the film has created. Considering his work and connections outside of just the ‘freakshow’ business (which included being an author, publisher, and philanthropist, creating the Fiji Mermaid and General Tom Thumb hoaxes, helped in abolishing slavery, and being the mayor of Bridgeton in 1875), there’s plenty to work with him, but arguably too much to squeeze all of it into one film.  The fact that he looks more like Rowan Atkinson rather than Wolverine is pretty noticeable, but the showmanship was clearly the angle of the movie, and Hugh Jackman is known for being a very charismatic guy who can sing and dance, so that’s who they went with. Unfortunately, everybody is directed to act as ignorantly jovial and stereotypical as the environment requires, which leaves the overly passionate performers like Michelle Williams and Jackman feeling airy and not very focused and more stable performers like Zac Efron and Zendaya bland and forgettable. The actual ‘freaks’ within the show aren’t even really given much to work with; despite the movie being about them, they are given very little screen time and outside of song numbers and sympathy moments, they don’t have any characters or backstory. It feels like the movie cuts out a lot of the intricacies around whether or not P.T. Barnum is met to be viewed or a good or a bad person, which history showed that he dabbled in both avenues several times. Instead, when you get an actor like Hugh Jackman and have a movie that seemed confidant in ignoring any sense of reality, you’re not going to portray him as a truly complicated man who did some shady stuff, but rather a ‘’misunderstood person who lost sight of what was really important’’.

What so ironic is that despite how terribly a lot of the story and characters are handled, everything else in this movie is not only amazingly entertaining, but crafted with such fantastic effort, passion, and talent that it can’t be ignored how wonderfully its handled. Its like being hit by a lightning bolt of entertainment, its actually kind of impossible to not get pumped up in some of these song numbers. While it was Michael Gracey’s first time directing a film, he had experience with music videos in the past and that clearly shows with how amazingly these music numbers are filmed and staged. Everything to the pacing, the editing (by a variety of editors including Tom Cross, Robert Duffy, Joe Hutshing, Michael McCusker, Jon Poll and Spencer Susser), the fast yet focused camera movements by Seamus McGarvey, it shows off every stunt, every flash of light, every wonderful angle with great detail and a fantastically keen eye for good imagery that it leaves even simple moments looking visually impressive. The film is wonderfully vibrant and popping with great colors and lighting  that, while definitely adding to the enchanted atmosphere the movie created, enhances it correctly in making the music feel more uplifting and magically in the best way possible, instead of the fairy-tale way that it does with the rest of the movie. The production design by Nathan Crowley as well as the costume design by Ellen Mirojnick matches the time period the film accompanies while being a little theatrical and incredibly well detailed and equally as colorful as its surroundings. The songs are written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, whose work had already been heavily praised in projects like the 2016 film, La La Land, and the stage musical, Dear Evan Hansen. Their talents and brilliance with a tune carry over here as well, producing catchy and incredibly passionate songs that while maybe repetitive in emotional meaning (there’s only so many times you can have a ‘hopeful’ song number), but have great melodies, quick lyrics and surprisingly nice meanings behind them so they leave their impact very effectively. Despite sounding pretty modernized and sometimes over-corrected digitally, the lyrics and messages behind some of these songs are pretty timeless, allowing them to exist outside of this movie and stay with people even if their presentation and meaning in the film wasn’t spectacular. The singers are all very good and have an equal amount of screen presence that the songs require (Keala Settle especially just nails all of her notes). Its impossible to not enjoy how much effort was put into making this musical as inviting and energetic as possible.

The Greatest Showman is easily one of the most conflicting movies that anyone will have to watch, because the range of emotions you’ll feel will be very split. One second, you could be rolling your eyes or feeling incredibly disappointed at how ridiculous and stupid this plot is and how its not even trying to hide how ITS not trying to be interesting or authentic, but the next second you probably wouldn’t care because you’d be blown away by the music and fall right back into its lap again. Its blatantly clear that this movie isn’t good and has a screenplay so awfully written that it has no chance of staying in any people’s memory, but the strengths of the production, visuals and music are signs that people are willing to watch the movie just for that alone. Its why the soundtrack and covers of the songs are still so frequent, they are so great and deserve to be reheard, but you are definitely never going hear anyone quoting the lines or scenes in this film ever again. Its really up to the person’s tolerance for predictable cliches whether they will get into this movie fully, but it seems like almost everybody is able to get into the music and the passion that this movie offers, and that alone is worth the price of admission. Decide for yourself if this is something worth waiting for and if it can truly earn the title of the greatest show.