Movie Review: “The Greatest Showman” Is Proof the Show Mustn’t Always Go On

The Greatest Showman is a musical starring Hugh Jackman and also a modest descriptor of the song-and-dance-and-adamantium man himself.

He’s a consummate professional, and that job often includes grinning through material that’s beneath him and a little bit embarrassing. Director Michael Gracey’s biopic of circus impresario P.T. Barnum is both of those things. But through it all, Jackman soft-shoes, sings and emphatically sells the production with all the gusto of Barnum himself.

The man is a national treasure. The feature, not so much.

Jackman’s joined by an army of athletic, all-in actors, including Michelle Williams, Zendaya and, in his big musical return, Zac Efron. They follow their lead’s footsteps and deliver Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s grating songs with unbridled enthusiasm and commitment. Why? Because they’re all in this together.

For those unfamiliar with Barnum’s life, you’d be better off reading about it elsewhere, because this script, by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon, takes liberties left and right. We’ll let it slide this time, given they’re telling the tale of a notorious flim-flam man and expert exaggerator. Barnum, as the movie tells it, rose from nothing in 19th century New York to build a museum devoted to the exotic, curious and macabre, brought to life by performers of strange renown: a bearded woman; the "world’s" fattest man; a dude with tattoos from head to toe; umm, some twins. They really were entertained by anything in the 1840s.

Barnum, who acts as ringmaster for what the critics derisively call a "circus", becomes obsessed with courting the upper crust, first hiring wealthy playwright Phillip Carlyle (Efron) to bring him some esteem, and then touring Swedish songbird Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) as his marquee, non-freak act. Barnum’s otherwise-chipper wife, Charity (Williams), then sings a sad tune about “walking the tightrope”. Other song titles include "A Million Dreams", "This Is Me" and "Rewrite the Stars". Shouldn’t a picture about one of history’s weirdest and longest-running sideshows be less, I dunno, predictable?

The songwriters recently scored a Tony for their acclaimed Broadway hit Dear Evan Hanson, and an Oscar for penning "City of Stars" in La La Land. Yet their songs here are an unholy combination of Queen’s "We Will Rock You", Katy Perry’s "Firework" and Stomp. They come one after another, which I suppose is how musicals work, but at this combination of cast enthusiasm and lyrical ineptitude, their ceaselessness feels more like a threat.

Most disconcerting is the way in which Gracey frames these musical sequences, many of them delivered right down the barrel of the camera, with the performers lined up across the frame and shout-singing right at us. By the end, I felt the false grin still plastered across my face, like I’d been at a child’s terrible and maybe-a-bit offensive Nativity play, not wanting to break their little heart by betraying my inner monologue: “What. Am. I. Watching?” I feel terrible for feeling this way. I’d rather be the supportive parent: “Great work, Zac! We’re so proud of you, honey!” I guess the songs wore down my sympathy.

The Greatest Showman has its charms. The pipes on Keala Settle’s bearded lady are formidable, and Zendaya, as one-half of a trapeze act with the underutilised Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, reveals her charismatic turn in Spider-Man: Homecoming was no fluke. And though Efron isn’t exactly Jackman’s heir apparent, it’s nice to be reminded of his fleet-footedness. He and Zendaya acrobatically serenade one another in the air, hurling themselves across the room while attached to trapeze cables. In real life, their bare hands would have been shredded to bloody nubs. During shooting, they smacked into one another. On film, there’s no danger or thrill at all.

There’s the icky side of the story as well, with the depiction of Barnum as a hero of the unseen, underappreciated and unsung. (“Unsung” is probably not a phrase we can continue to lob.) Was he challenging the prejudices of the era by prominently showcasing people of different shapes, sizes and races? Or was he inflaming those prejudices, profiting off the otherisation? Or, and stay with me here, was it a different era with different values, completely alien to our own? All necessary questions, not at all explored by The Greatest Showman, which instead settles on bland, “always believe in your dreams” sentimentality instead.

Cool, cool, whatever keeps Hugh Jackman in a top hat and tails, I guess.

2.5/5

In cinemas Boxing Day. Rated PG for mild themes.

Photo: Fox