A brilliant, thrilling masterpiece.

Rating: 10/10 (2 March 2018)

This week I chose to watch The Greatest Showman (2017). This film is uniquely a biography-drama-musical. The logline reads "Celebrates the birth of show business, and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation." This movie made me feel inspired as a creative. The score was amazing and brilliantly paired to sensational visuals. The story made me stop and think about PT Barnum's life and what it was like. You see, I like movies that pay tribute to someone's life this way and how appropriate that it's the way we honor the father of show business in this style. I loved the poetry of the nature of the film being a musical and how it was a show that paid homage to showmanship. Yes, there IS controversy about the accuracy of the film, but the movie really wasn't meant to be a documentary. The entire essence of the films was just a relative artistic portrayal of a man's life that we might otherwise just take for granted. Looking at the real photos of the people this story was based on compared to the cast that played in the movie -- it is clear that this is simply a dolled up version of a real life tale. I think the story was pretty amazing and we got to learn a lot about who PT Barnum was and how the legendary circus came about. The acting of course was A-list actors and the actors were on par. I really enjoyed the cast that was assembled for this movie. I think that they not only worked their individual roles quite nicely, but they also played off of each other rather well. I really enjoyed that Hugh Jackman was cast in this role because I relived a tiny sliver of Les Miserables when he sang (I LOVE Les Miserables). The thing that I think I enjoyed the most about this film was it s directing. The director, Michael Gracey was formerly a visual effects artist and his intimacy with the visual shot composition makes itself apparent in the visual movements and editing transitions. This really gave the film a Baz Luhrmann stylization with added aesthetic excitement. Overall, I thought the film was wonderfully told and beautifully put together. I will be looking forward to owning this movie.