'No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.'

Rating: 10/10 (13 April 2018)

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN will likely come as a surprise favorite of audience - especially people who avoid sappy musicals. As written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon and directed by Michael Gracey, this biography of the life of Phineas Taylor Barnum is a treasure. Rarely doe a movie full of glitz and glamour and over the top antics and dances and big ensemble numbers make sense, but this film does.
The film opens with Phineas Taylor "P.T." Barnum (Hugh Jackman) joining his circus troupe in a song ("The Greatest Show"), playing to an enthusiastic crowd as he and his performers put on a dazzling show. Cut to Barnum as a young boy (Ellis Rubin) in the 1800's orphaned, penniless but ambitious and with a mind crammed with imagination and fresh ideas, the American Phineas Taylor Barnum (Hugh Jackman) will always be remembered as the man with the gift to effortlessly blur the line between reality and fiction. He marries the girl of his dreams - Charity (Michelle Williams) - and has two daughters who play a major impact on Barnum's life. Thirsty for innovation and hungry for success, the son of a tailor will manage to open a wax museum but will soon shift focus to the unique and peculiar, introducing extraordinary, never-seen-before live acts on the circus stage. Some will call Barnum's wide collection of oddities, a freak show; however, when the obsessed showman gambles everything on the opera singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) to appeal to a high-brow audience, he will somehow lose sight of the most important aspect of his life: his family. In many ways the show take a turn for the better when wealthy young Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron) joins the company. But the joy of the show is in part due to the ebullient cast of circus players (Zendaya, Keala Settle, Sam Humphrey, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, etc).
Sparkling, a bit long on the repetitions of the songs, but a show with a message that leaves your heart hopeful and luminous.