A sanitized portrait of P.T. Barnum for the modern age
★★¼5 PG 105 minutes
First thing’s first: Though it features a character named “P.T. Barnum,” “The Greatest Showman” is in no way a factual account of the life of the celebrated 19th-century circus founder and huckster. In fact, you’ll have to completely set aside any unsavory stories you may have heard about the real-life Barnum, because this one is played by the ever-charming Hugh Jackman.
Directed by first-timer Michael Gracey, the musical never aspires to be anything more than a heaping helping of PG-rated holiday cheese — something that the whole family can partake of. For the most part, it meets that low bar, though you’ll have to suspend disbelief at every turn.
The story begins during Barnum’s boyhood, when, while working in his father’s tailor shop, he falls in love with Charity, the daughter of a wealthy client. Once the girl becomes an adult, played by Michelle Williams, she can’t be talked out of marrying her beloved.
Fast-forward a few years, to when they’re parents to a couple of kids and struggling to make ends meet. As if on cue, Barnum dreams up a novel way to make money, via a museum of curiosities, complete with human attractions. After putting out a call for unique individuals, he forms his troupe: There’s the bearded lady (Keala Settle) and tiny Tom Thumb (Sam Humphrey), not to mention the sibling trapeze artists W.D. and Anne Wheeler (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Zendaya). When W.D. warns that people won’t like seeing black performers onstage, the showman replies, with a knowing smirk: “Oh, I’m counting on it.”
At first, Barnum isn’t entirely sensitive to the needs of his employees. When he tries to recruit the man whom he would christen Tom Thumb — a dwarf who isn’t interested in having people stare at him — Barnum replies, “They’re laughing anyway. You might as well get paid.” But pretty soon, he’s as progressive as a 21st-century Twitter liberal, empowering his group of former pariahs to live their best lives.
Will you buy any of this? Not really. In part, that’s because everything about the movie feels artificial, from the singers’ blatantly Auto-Tuned voices to the CGI acrobatics. “Does it bother you that everything you’re selling is fake?” Barnum is asked at one point. It’s hard not to apply the question to the film itself. Barnum retorts, “Do the smiles seem fake?”