Death of a Salesman; Birth of a Show

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2017)

Cinema can have a cruel sense of dramatic irony. Only a few months after the Ringling Bros circus announced its final curtain call, due to waning ticket sales and those pesky animal rights activists, comes the release of The Greatest Showman - a loving, nostalgic movie musical tribute to its founder, that could well have rekindled affection, interest, and, crucially, ticket sales. The juxtaposition is poignant, as the film is, at once, a decidedly old-school musical love letter to big-hearted dreamers, but sprinkled with a healthy seasoning of behind-the-curtain artifice and capitalistic pragmatism to help it land in a more cynical contemporary market. Here is a worthwhile spiritual sequel and prequel at once for those wowed by 2016's La La Land: a comparable narrative hamster wheel of short-sighted crutches of cliché, bolstered by truly magical forays into spectacle spectacular. And are you not entertained?
Suffice to say, if The Greatest Showman stands the test of time, it will not be due to its plot. Barnum's 'Rags-To-Riches-but-AT-WHAT-COST' tale is so perilously over-familiar that it verges on the redundant, and you can practically hear director Michael Gracey keeping his eye on his watch through each perfunctory story beat, awaiting the chance for his next musical interlude. Equally uneasy is Gracey's treatment of his titular showman. On the whole, it's a fairly rosy-cheeked take on Barnum, playing up the 'bringing joy and wonder to the hearts of the masses' angle of a characterization that would otherwise be, in essence, 'Capitalism: A Love Story.' A more intriguing take could have inverted the focus, making our put-upon circus performers the central protagonists, and Barnum a more enigmatic Gatsby or Wizard of Oz figure, charismatically sweet-talking them into the conflicted stardom of being his mawkish show ponies. It's poignantly fitting to keep Barnum the face and star of his venture, but it does make his film somewhat lopsided and unnecessarily clichéd.
Yes, circuses are nostalgically magical but now ethically uncertain terrain, perhaps explaining the film's desperate, somewhat inorganic fumbling for thematic urgency and redemption. Earnest pretentions at 'be yourself and be proud' empowerment,
painting the circus as a refuge for and celebration of the otherwise ostracized (insert discrimination/diversity/racism subplot and requisite torch-brandishing mob here) never fully land, while spending most of its energies asking us to root for Barnum, who cheerfully exploits his unconventional stars for money and social status. Barnum's initial crass pitch of "They're gonna laugh anyway, kid - may as well get paid for it," before launching into his silver-tongued empowering spiel, is about as close to the grimy, hard line truth as the film ever gets. Still, if you hold back tears during the scene-stealing Keala Settle's bombastic showstopper, 'This Is Me' centrepiece number, you're made of sterner stuff than me.
Thematically, the film is more interesting when flirting with unpacking the schism and values of high/low culture and entertainment/cultural value that Barnum becomes obsessed with - even if Gracey resorts to the tired cliché of the most abominable movie critic since Birdman to espouse armchair cultural philosophy. It's tempting to take the bait and extrapolate to a meta-commentary of the film as a whole (if it's significant for one person, regardless of crass intentions, it has value), though still a shame, in the post-Hamilton era of ethically nuanced musical protagonists, that the film balks at digging deeper into Barnum's seedier real-life marketing practices in the name of making a quick buck.
But, just like the real circus, it's probably best not to peek behind the curtain for optimum enjoyment, as Gracey's flair for eye-popping cinematic razzle-dazzle is easily worth the price of admission. Anchored on a backbone of exceptional, almost obnoxiously catchy song numbers by La La Land/Dear Evan Hansen's Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the film's neo-nostalgia pop flashiness feels far more organic and earned than Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby. Replete with exceptionally vibrant costumes, lighting, flooringly immaculate choreography (many dances - particularly a stomping, shot-taking barroom face-off between Jackman and Efron - genuinely do feel unlike anything we've ever seen), and hummingbird cinematography, perennially whizzing between and around the highs and lows of the big top, perfectly encapsulate the dizzying, cotton-candy high of a circus extravaganza. There are times when the kaleidoscope of colours, movement, and CGI verge on overstimulating, but it's fairly apropos for a film about the notoriously hyperbolic Barnum similarly stuffed with spectacle embellishments around every corner.
But, if nothing else, the film finds wings solely as a vehicle to showcase the cinematically untapped musical prowess of Hugh Jackman. Brimming with a jubilant, airy charisma, lighting-quick dance moves, a commanding belt, and a devilish twinkle in his eye, Jackman has never been so explosively, infectiously fun as he is showing off here. Zac Efron similarly impresses with airtight song and dance prowess, even if his (fictitious composite) straight man voice of reason character feels somewhat superfluous to the plot. Michelle Williams, similarly, is a joy to watch, but a tragic case of a phenomenal performance and voice utterly squandered in one of the most inexcusably under-written 'I Am Wife' plot devices pitfalls in years. Thankfully, Zendaya is slyly, impishly likeable as a precocious trapeze artist, while also anchoring a racism-fraught romantic subplot with applaudable gravitas.
It's actually refreshing to have a film so holistically at peace with its ethical dichotomies - yes, it's fairly artificial, junky, exploitative, and fundamentally commercially-minded. But, gosh darn it, are you not entertained, at all costs? Ultimately, it may not be everything you ever want and need, but it's an intrinsically harmless, stupendously fun ride, and so far from the belly-flop off a trapeze that could have been. If nothing else, the film lays a strong foundation for an inevitable run of Broadway revivals - one of which, assuredly, will work closer towards fully requiting the lofty promises of the film's title.

-7/10