‘THE GREATEST SHOWMAN’
A lush Hollywood love letter to the circus
In a year that saw P.T. Barnum’s circus come to an end, Hollywood has delivered a lavish musical love story to where it began.
You have to reach back to “Moulin Rouge” in 2001 for a movie spectacle as throwback lush and musically modern as “The Greatest Showman.” The origin story of circus pioneer Barnum boasts all new songs and a star turn by Hugh Jackman, bringing a big top full of his liveperformance charisma to the big screen.
Mr. Jackman has the singing-dancingacting chops to warrant the title. His Barnum is a heightened choice, one perhaps more suited to the stage than screen, but what a relief to sit down to a musical with a Broadway-ready cast.
Released from on-the-spot singing, the conceit of Mr. Jackman’s Oscarnominated performance in “Les Miserables,” he and his co-stars are free to move and emote with abandon. However, you may experience whiplash when thinking back to the actor’s other star turn this year, in the brutal, R-rated “Logan.” Wolverine is a far, far cry from inveterate huckster and family man P.T. Barnum.
The film that was seven years from pitchto screen arrives in the year that saw the end of the 146-year-old Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. If you are among the folks glad to see the circus’ demise because of alleged mistreatment of animals, there is only a fleeting reference that might bring to mind that can of worms. The focus is firmly on the ringmaster and those close to him, with the people who populate the circus — including a real-life Tom Thumb (Melbourne actor Sam Humphrey) and a “Dog Boy” (stunt performer Luciano Acuna Jr.) — at theservice of Barnum’s vision.
“The Greatest Showman” also arrives on the heels of “La La Land,” which paved the way for this original musical in unexpected ways. Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul were virtual unknowns when they came aboard, and
during the long process of getting the Barnum biopic made, they won Academy Awards as lyricists for “La La Land” and Tony Awards for best musical “Dear Evan Hansen.”
The movie is peppered with Pasek-Paul pop anthems such as “This Is Me,” a bold declaration sung by bearded lady Lettie Lutz (Tony nominee Keala Settle). Another potential breakout is the love song “Rewrite the Stars,” an intimate pas de deux by two luminaries from the Disney galaxy, Zac Efron and Zendaya, in an almost blinding beacon to a teen demographic. (The soundtrack already has a coveted endorsement from Oprah Winfrey, who put it on her list of “Favorite Things of 2017.”)
Dance numbers filmed in a circus ring or tavern seem ready-made for a proscenium stage, but one of the more cinematic moments is a lovely shot of Michelle Williams as Barnum’s wife, twirling to the edge of a rooftop. That New York tenement roof is where dreams are made, and down-on-his-luck Barnum is determined to make all them come true.
We see him invent the term “show business” while wooing Mr. Efron’s uppercrust Phillip Carlyle into his circus venture. They sing and bro-dance, and Carlyle becomes Barnum’s protege — and in short order is smitten with dazzling trapeze artist Anne Wheeler (Zendaya).
Mr. Efron’s character is among the ways the movie strays from the 1980 musical “Barnum.” This new iteration owes as much to stage musicals as it does music videos andBaz Luhrmann movies.
It’s a glitzy debut for firsttime director Michael Gracey, an Aussie visual-effects artist working from a screenplay by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon. The film does not shy from Barnum’s follies or the fact that the circus grew out of a fascination with human “curiosities and oddities.”
The folks who disapprove of the “freaks” in their midst are depicted as either low-life ruffians or the high-society crowd. The movie posits that the cheers and jeers don’t matter to the acts on display — they have seen it all before and are happy to have found acceptance in a familial group.
As Barnum becomes more and more successful, his own family life is put to the test.
Which raises the question, is there anything Michelle Williams can’t do, even when she has as little to do as in this film? She is luminous as Charity, Barnum’s childhood sweetheart who is disinherited when they marry.
The couple’s fairy-tale romance falters when her husband heads to England for an audience with Queen Victoria. In the royal court, Barnum meets the Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), and in her he sees a way into the world of the rich and powerful who have shunned him in America. He takes Lind on a highly successful tour of the U.S., and their relationship is given a Hollywood twist that strays from real-life accounts.
P.T. Barnum, who is credited with the saying “There’s a sucker born every minute,” would probably approve of tweaking the truth in order to please the crowd.
After all, that’s showbiz.