Musical! Spectacular!

Rating: 9/10 (4 January 2018)

The first valuable thing about this film is that it is an original for-film-musical, not a Broadway adaptation as it might seem.
The music is created by an amazing duo Pasek and Paul who got on the top after La La Land´s success. It was a good promotion strategy to release soundtrack before film premiere because the music is great and catchy and resonates. People follow these two and they followed the music before the film.
What is even better is that it works with the visual as well. There is space for choreography. Logically, while giving space to musical numbers, there is not that much left for dialogs and storytelling. Creators succeeded to start with the main character´s childhood and finish in the middle age by using visually nicely done shortcuts and time bridges. It is a musical in its pure form.
What was missed was at least some space for the supporting characters, all the misfits from the concert who were used only as dancers which sort of spoiled the main thought. Even Zendaya´s and Zack Efron´s characters did not get much space if it was not about their romance. I missed knowing how did Anne and her brother learned their trapeze art or who is the girl with albino skin and hair often shown in frame.
Probably no one else than Jackman could be chosen for this character. It seemed he felt maybe the best in his part from all the characters he had portraited before.
The film is about P. T. Barnum who was a great entertainer but also someone who brought wild animals to circus and generally was quite terrifying person from what is known, not glamorous as Jackman´s performance at all. It is totally fine because this is a film and film can do whatever it wants to make a good result. The movie used obviously digital techniques for visualizing the animals mostly and cannot be blamed for anything of course. But in that moment Hollywood again served as a tool for misrepresentation, cannot help the feeling. It is made-up story based on a couple real facts, not a biography, so it was not necessary to stick to P. T. Barnum´s name and celebrate him. But that is just a personal note.
The movie targets emotions big time! And I encourage everyone to go through the sentimental experience simply because it is done so well!