The Best Musical Soundtrack in Decades.

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2018)

What makes a musical a great movie? If it's story and character development-bringing you closer to every emotional twist and turn, energizing the empty space between each song-The Greatest Showman is a mediocre enterprise. If, however, it's music that makes a musical, then Showman is one of the best films of the year, and one of the best musicals in decades.
The movie is essentially a biography of P.T. Barnum, whose name is synonymous with the circus he founded. It's 19th century New York. Barnum (Hugh Jackman) grows up a tailor's son, then a street rat. He marries the wealthy Charity and they have two beautiful daughters.
Years later they're still in New York, barely getting by. Charity's happily left her silver spoon behind, but Barnum wants more for her, their daughters, and himself-even if he doesn't know it.
His imagination and drive lead to a museum, which becomes a freak show, then is renamed a 'circus.' But, perhaps, not even Phineas Taylor Barnum could have foreseen the heights his creation would eventually reach.
It's not a rare narrative arc; you've seen this story before: goodhearted businessman breaks his foot getting it in the door, finally earns his fortune, then risks everything to remember what life is really all about. And, while Showman is inspired by true events, no cynic would be chided for narrowing an eye toward such benevolent treatment of a character many consider a swindler and a fraud.
None of this, though, is likely to matter by the time the end credits role. Because the music-the songs, the dancing-are just that good. From The Other Side, sung by Barnum and his new partner Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron), to Carlyle and Anne Wheeler (Zendaya) soaring through Rewrite the Stars, to Lettie Lutz's (Keala Settle) show stopping This is Me, every tune is a prime cut. Never Enough, The Greatest Show, A Million Dreams-trust me, the titles don't do them justice.
But a soundtrack is one thing...and one thing only; it's half a movie. You need visuals to bring the lyrics to life. Enter Jackman, who, with his effervescence and likeability, seems born to play Barnum. Efron reminds us of the musical chops that made him a star in the first place; Williams and Zendaya each shine in the vocal spotlight, the former surprising us with her talent, the latter not at all.
This might be why The Greatest Showman is, in parts, an acute disappointment. There is such opportunity for more here, beyond song and stage. But from the start the film adopts a streamlined, almost frantic storytelling. Details are glossed over; years of activity are condensed within the melody of a montage.
This style doesn't necessarily have to backfire, but Showman lacks the patience to make it work. The movie is like a rock on a lake, skipping over its dramatic possibilities, never quite breaking their surface. It also carries hints of the metaphysical, sometimes seeming more dreamlike than real. This can enchant, but also isolate, keeping an audience at arm's length from a world and characters struggling to attain true flesh and blood.
And yet...the music. It all comes back to that. This is, after all, a musical. Upon further review, relating the story may not be such a lost cause. For we don't always need to know a character through what they say and do, but by how they sing and dance. Lyrics-the right lyrics, sung in the right way-have the power to reveal a human heart in greater detail than the grandest soliloquy or deepest history ever could.
That is what The Greatest Showman does. We know these characters, this world, through their song. Perhaps that is what a musical was always meant to be.