Contrived And Artificial, But Works

Rating: 8/10 (30 May 2011)

Yes, the movie is a contrived mix of late nineteenth century events with modern music. Yes, it's mostly a lot of singing and dancing and then the heroine dies as she was going to all along, having had consumption (tuberclosis). Yes, it's very flashy and unrealistic. Yet it still manages to work.
How? Probably because everyone manages to play everything straight. Like Monty Python, it's the straightforward performances that manage to carry the material. The actors manage to meld everything seamlessly, which in other hands might have led to disaster. The movie was an artistic risk, but it paid off.