The problem isn't that it's a musical but that it isn't a particularly good one.

Rating: 4/10 (10 April 2018)

There's an interesting story in here that would have been much better served as either a straight drama or comedy. Perhaps, it could have even still been a musical, so long as the real-life events were portrayed honestly and the characters were given some actual development, instead of the glorified and one-note representations we are given here. The point is that the problem I had with the piece isn't that its a musical (admittedly my least favourite genre) but that it isn't a particularly good one. Songs start seemingly out of nowhere and tend to head in that same direction, with only one or two actually representing a change within the characters or displaying their inner desires previously not communicated to the audience. The overall piece also can't seem to decide if it occupies that weird space where the world itself stops for a musical number, but it's essentially just for the audience, or if the flick wants the characters themselves to literally be singing (diegetically) within the scene. Instead, the film confusingly flutters between the two modes, sometimes within the same sequence, breaking any immersion that might've been felt. There were only one or two such sequences I thought were interestingly done, anyway. Its an odd choice for pop-style music in a period narrative, but one that could've worked it if was perhaps pushed further or done more cohesively. I will admit that one or two songs are catchy and entertaining in isolation. But the lack of connective tissue is even more inexcusable when you consider that most of the material just isn't that good. This would've certainly been better served as an album than a screen story. 4/10