Some Things Are Worth Waiting For

Rating: 10/10 (19 January 2018)

"The Greatest Showman" is that rare thing in the 21st century, a film musical made in the traditional style but not based upon a Broadway or West End show. The idea of the film was first mooted as long ago as 2009, but remained stuck in "development hell" for a number of years, allegedly because of the difficulties in obtaining funding for an original musical. It is loosely based upon the life of the 19th century circus owner and showman P. T. Barnum, telling of his rise from humble beginnings to fame and fortune. A key element is Barnum's relationship with his wife Charity, the daughter of a wealthy family who do not approve of their marriage. The crisis of the story comes when Barnum's circus is destroyed in a fire and Charity leaves him because she believes he is having an affair with the opera singer Jenny Lind; Barnum has to work to rebuild both his business and his marriage.
A subplot deals with the love between Phillip Carlyle, Barnum's friend and financial backer, and Anne Wheeler, a beautiful trapeze artist with the show. Like Charity, Carlyle is from an aristocratic family, and his parents are horrified by this relationship, not only because of Anne's lowly social status but also because she is black. Hollywood is today rather more liberal than it once was about depicting mixed-race relationships on screen, although this film inadvertently reveals the continuing existence of some curious double standards in this respect. It seems to be easier for an African-American actress to find work if she is light-skinned or (like Zendaya Coleman who plays Anne) biracial. This does not apply to male actors; the actor playing Anne's brother is conspicuously darker skinned than she is, so much so as to suggest they could not in reality be children of the same parents.
The Carlyle/Anne relationship, however, fits in well with the film's general message, which is one of tolerance, inclusivity and accepting who you are. One of Barnum's more controversial ventures- controversial even in his own day- was the creation of a "freak show", a collection of people of unusual appearance (a dwarf, a giant, a "bearded lady", etc.) who were exhibited to the public. In 2017 such a thing would be even more controversial than it was in the 19th century and it might have been easier to airbrush this aspect of Barnum's activities from the historical record. Instead, the scriptwriters make it a central part of the story and defend it by pointing out that Barnum was actually giving these people, who otherwise would have been shut away in seclusion, a sense of purpose in life and a means of earning a living.
The film received mixed reviews from the critics, with one of the main grounds for complaint being its alleged historical inaccuracy. It does indeed take a number of liberties with the facts of Barnum's life, but was never intended as a strictly factual biography. It falls within a long tradition of novels, plays and films which tell an essentially fictional story based upon real historical individuals. There is nothing wrong with that. I would not, for example, recommend Milos Foreman's "Amadeus" to anyone wanting to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the lives of Mozart and Salieri- and yet it is still a brilliant film. This tradition goes back far beyond the rise of Hollywood- compare the plot of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" with the known facts about that monarch's reign.
At the heart of the film is a magnificent performance from Hugh Jackman as Barnum, a man who is at the same time a shrewd businessman and a man with a song in his heart, a flashy showman and an inspired visionary. He receives sterling support from, among others, Coleman, Michelle Williams as Charity and Zac Efron as Carlyle. Most of the cast do their own singing, the main exception being Rebecca Ferguson, who clearly felt intimidated by the idea of trying to imitate Lind, the greatest opera star of her day. Actually, the singer brought in to dub her voice does not really sound much like an operatic soprano either, but then Lind's songs here are typical musical-theatre numbers rather than mock-operatic arias. The songs, in fact, are one of the best features, heart-wrenching numbers which add greatly to the film's emotional power.
I was surprised to learn that this was Michael Gracey's directorial debut, but perhaps I should not have been. There have been a number of other directors who made a masterpiece at their first attempt. The classic example is always said to be Orson Welles with "Citizen Kane", but I would also add Bryan Forbes with "Whistle Down the Wind", Stuart Rosenberg with "Cool Hand Luke" and Sam Mendes with "American Beauty". And now Gracey with "The Greatest Showman". All those years it was stuck in development hell only go to show that some things are worth waiting for. 10/10
Some goofs. I will not list the various historical inaccuracies, because, as I said, this is not a strictly factual biography. I did wonder, however, why Charity's father always answers the door to his stately mansion himself- would a man of his wealth and position not have had servants to do this? And the scene in which Barnum obtains finding for his venture by offering as collateral a fleet of ships at the bottom of the ocean never rang true. The loss of an entire fleet of American merchant ships in a typhoon would have been widely reported in the press and the bankers would have seen through Barnum's ruse.