A musical about the creator of a US circus hits the right notes
LOS ANGELES — Set in colorful, mid-1800s New York City, Hugh Jackman’s musical The Greatest Showman has hit all the high notes, pulling in $94.5 million in North America and more than $100 million internationally through Sunday.
The Greatest Showman is inspired by the story of P.T. Barnum’s creation of the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the lives of its star attractions. Directed by Michael Gracey in his directorial debut, the film stars Jackman as P.T. Barnum, an ambitious American showman and entrepreneur.
On Rotten tomatoes 5.5 out of every 10 critics gave it a positive rating, while 9 out of 10 audience members gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“I’m so proud of it! When you tell an actor like me that his song from the movie is also topping the music charts, I can’t help bragging about that!” Jackman says.
Gracey delivered a colorful, creatively staged and emotionally resonant crowdpleaser, with high-caliber help from two-time Oscarnominated cinematographer Seamus McGarvy, three-time Oscar-nominated production designer Nathan Crowley and the talented Jackman himself.
The songs and score, by the Academy Award-winning composing team Benj Pasek and Justin Paul of La La Land fame and choreographer Ashley Wallen, popped out a series of rhythmic, toe-tapping showstoppers worthy of Oscar norms, which Urban Cinefile called, “a sizzling explosion of color, music and joie de vivre.”
As a creative team, they brought the house down, creating a magical, uplifting musical extravaganza that’s a cinematic feast for the eyes, ears and hearts.
Jackman says: “This was my passion project. I knew in my gut it was a story I wanted to tell. Though it took years to get off the ground, it was all worth it in the end.”
While keeping the tone light, the film manages to convey a powerful message about diversity and acceptance, including the inspiring song This Is Me, which is destined to become an anthem for anyone anywhere who’s ever felt on the outside looking in.
The film revolves around Barnum’s early days when he created what we think of as the modern circus. But it took homegrown Barnum to conceive of combining equestrian acts, trained animals, menageries, goofy clowns, human feats of strength and agility with human oddities — all under one showstopping, jaw-dropping Big-Top Circus.
Barnum rose to wealth and fame with his unparalleled gift for what the Irish affectionately call “blarney”, elevating showmanship to an art form.
There is some controversy that the film, in typical Hollywood revisionist fashion, unabashedly celebrates Barnum as a courageous humanist and hero for daring to embrace society’s human “oddities and misfits”.
But as LA Times film critic Justin Chang puts it, “curiously absent from the movie’s relentless feel-good offensive are any references to, say, ... Joice Heth, a slave whom Barnum paraded before his customers, falsely claiming that she was George Washington’s 161-year-old former ‘mammy.’”
Yet others contend that Barnum’s lapses were offset by his vigorous, pre-Civil War antislavery stance and his frequent staging of abolitionist performances, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s iconic Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in which Barnum gave the story a revised happy ending, freeing Tom and other slaves.
Also, as an elected member of the Connecticut legislature with strong religious convictions, Barnum went out on a limb to eloquently support the ratification of the 13th Amendment.
In many ways, The Greatest Showman is an apt allegory and necessary patent medicine for a time when racism is openly espoused in the United States, and some ethnicities are currently under fire.