‘The Greatest Showman’ weighed down by its music
Because it feels so at odds with itself at times, “The Greatest Showman” is a far cry from the greatest show on earth — or even of this movie season.
The biographical musical about 1800s circus pioneer P.T. Barnum wants to be two different things from its opening moments, when vintage title graphics that give a sense of the story’s setting are blended with the type of irritatingly contemporary music that will permeate the film. That kind of marriage can work well, but it doesn’t here.
However, even with a collection of songs seemingly more designed to appeal to younger tastes than to be, you know, actually memorable, “The Greatest Showman” crosses its Ts and dots its Is and ultimately is a relatively movie-going experience.
Hugh Jackman, no stranger to stage musicals and musical films — he starred in 2012’s bigscreen “Les Miserables” — portrays the great showman, although we first meet Phineas Taylor Barnum as a poor boy (Ellis Rubin), the son of a tailor. At the home of a wealthy family, Phineas meets a young girl, Charity (Skylar Dunn), and laughs while she’s supposed to be practicing how to drink tea like a proper lady.
Phineas is admonished — and slapped — by Charity’s father, so, of course, she soon sneaks off with him. In a visually sensational montage
from first-time director Michael Gracey, the boy unveils his imagination to this impressionable girl, and by the end of it they are together as adults, Charity being portrayed by Michelle Williams.
“She’ll be back,” the woman’s father tells P.T. “She’ll tire of your life, of having nothing, and come back home.”
Well, she’s very happy with her choice early on, even if her husband has provided her with little more than two lovely and adoring little girls. It’s not enough for him, however, and he begins the first of many efforts to make a buck while capitalizing on what he sees as the public’s fascination with the odd and the macabre. He takes out a huge loan — offering the bank collateral he doesn’t actually have — and goes about recruiting people for a show at his new museum of “curiosities,” including a very small man he will turn into a general on a horse and a large and heavily bearded lady with a great set of pipes.
Interest in the museum is mild at first, to say the least, but P.T. is helped by publicity from protests and a theater critic, James Gordon Bennett (Paul Sparks), who is none too kind to his show in his New York paper but uses a two-syllable word the hustler likes very much.
As the story progresses, P.T. grows very successful and is able to give his family more than they ever wanted. He, however, remains unsatisfied, it’s gnawing at him that he’s still shunned by the upper crust of society. To try change that, he recruits a promoter of traditional theater, Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron), who for 10 percent of the profits comes on board as what he calls a “junior partner” but what P.T. says is better described as an “overcompensated apprentice.”
While Phillip begins to fall for trapeze artist Anne Wheeler (Zendaya), whose dark skin means she won’t be accepted by his wealthy family and their kind, P.T. becomes obsessed with exposing U.S. audiences to Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson). Promoting concerts by Jenny would see him, for the first time, providing unquestionably legitimate entertainment.
“People come to my show for the pleasure of being hoodwinked,” he says. “Just once I’d like to give them something real.”
Ah, but might a mutual attraction between P.T. and Jenny unravel everything he’s built, both personally and professionally?
Gracey, whose background is in visual effects, is uneven in his debut, but he keeps things lively enough and never loses the viewer. He just doesn’t yet have the touch to truly pull you in and not let you go.
He works from a script by Jenny Bicks (“Rio 2”) and Bill Condon (“Chicago,” “Dreamgirls”) that plays very fast and loose with Barnum’s life — Carlyle and Anne are among the screenplay’s inventions — but explores worthwhile themes that include empowerment and acceptance of yourself as you are. However, a pivotal moment between P.T. and Jenny is bungled so badly — given such
short shrift — that it does almost-irreparable damage.
While the score is credited to John Debney and John Trapanese, the songs are attributed to “La La Land” tandem Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. While the songs of “The Greatest Showman” succeed at helping to tell the film’s story and further mine its themes, they aren’t nearly as impressive as those from the 2016 almost-Oscar winner. Many fall somewhere between bland and irritating, but a couple of female-sung, emotion-packed numbers do stand out from the unremarkable crowd. (The songs work a bit better on a listen to the soundtrack, as they have no opportunity to clash with the setting, but just a bit better.) Jackman is solid as P.T., especially when the character begins to betray the ideals that helped bring him success, but there’s nothing remarkable about his performance. Williams (“Manchester by the Sea”) always manages to giver her character that little extra something, but, as written, Charity isn’t very compelling. Plain as day is Efron (“Baywatch”) as the largely uninteresting Carlyle. On the other hand, while Zendaya (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”) gets relatively little screen time, she makes an impression nonetheless.
There is much to like with “The Greatest Showman,” not the least of which is it is a musical likely suitable for all but very young children. It is big, shiny and, mostly, fun.
Those hoping for a truly great show, however, are likely to be disappointed.