Embrace the difference
Meryl Streep is queen of The Prom, an LGBTQ message musical gone Hollywood, writes
AS INCARNATED by Meryl Streep in
the Ryan Murphy movie musical The
Prom, Dee Dee Allen is a fading Broadway star stitched together — la Frankenstein from various divas. She flounces like Liza Minnelli, shimmies like Shirley MacLaine and bellows like Patti LuPone, all the while mugging for an invisible camera as though auditioning for the role of Norma Desmond in Andrew
Lloyd Webber's version of Sunset
Boulevard.
Having just opened a new musical about Eleanor Roosevelt, Dee Dee is waiting with her costar, Barry Glickman (James Corden), for the reviews to declare their show a hit. The Champagne starts flowing when the New Jersey StarLedger loves it. But the New York Times hammers a coffin nail so hard that Dee Dee and Barry fear for their future.
The stars of Eleanor! The Eleanor
Roosevelt Musical drown their sorrows at Sardi's, where they commiserate with two other downontheirluck troupers, ageing chorus girl Angie Dickinson (Nicole Kidman) and Juilliard gradturnedsitcomstarturnedbartender Trent Oliver (Andrew Rannells). Amid the orgy of selfpity, a lightbulb goes off: To rehabilitate their careers, they need to transform themselves into celebrity activists, taking up a cause that will prove to the world that they're not washedup narcissists but theatre people with heart.
Scrolling tipsily through Twitter, Angie learns about a young lesbian high school pupil in Indiana whose prom was cancelled by the PTA when word got out that she was planning to bring her girlfriend.Before you know it these desperate hams are boarding a road company bus to the Midwest to turn around their publicity by helping Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman) become prom queen.
When these thespian dogooders show up with press agent Sheldon Saperstein (Kevin Chamberlin) in tow, an angry meeting about the cancelled prom is already in session. ‘‘Who are you people?’’ asks an indignant Mrs Greene (Kerry Washington), the head of the PTA, who is fanning the flames of intolerance.
‘‘We are liberals from Broadway,’’ announces Trent, his Juilliard elocution inaugurating a nutty new chapter in the culture wars.
On Broadway, where The Prom had its premiere in 2018, the laughter provoked by the musical's setup was of gale force. Played by Broadway veterans (Beth Leavel and Brooks Ashmanskas) for an audience primed for backstage histrionics, the show seemed to float on a cloud of camp.
High hilarity, unfortunately, proved difficult to sustain. Schmaltz intervened. As the musical stretched on, the book by Bob Martin and lyricist Chad Beguelin and music by Matthew Sklar turned generic.
The dynamics are reversed in the starry screen version. The movie musical strains to replicate the show's opening exuberance. Streep, Corden, Kidman and Rannells are game, but there's an ersatz quality to the film.
Corden makes Barry's outbursts of singing and dancing seem perfectly natural, but not everyone carries a musical inside them. Rannells may be too much in his element, while Kidman appears in danger of being chewed up with the scenery her castmates are pigging out on.
Streep will delight all who savour the sillier side of the Oscarwinning grand dame. .
She plays a faltering prima donna to the hilt.
Mr Hawkins, the school principal amiably embodied by KeeganMichael Key, is Emma's defender in the battle against Mrs Greene. He's also a Dee Dee Allen fan.
A romance tentatively blossoms. It's a refreshing reversal of the usual Hollywood practice of pairing nubile women with oldermodel men, but Murphy's casting choices carry a neon glow.
What's perhaps most stirring about Murphy's film is the commitment of his Alist talent to the cause of LGBTQ acceptance. The Prom flirts at moments with being the most elaborate public service announcement ever created, but I was moved by the scale of the sentiment.
Murphy has made a progressive musical for the heartland. Compassion, inclusiveness and forgiveness are the prevailing themes.
The finale brings all sides together in a euphoric glimpse of utopia. The Prom sometimes seems of a piece with the shopping mall settings that are central to the film. But what's being glamorously sold is an embrace of difference.
The Prom is available to stream on
Netflix.