REVIEW: 'The Greatest Showman'

⭐⭐⭐⭐ ● 4 out of 5 stars

It's not easy for me to love musicals. Of the many such films I've watched (discounting Disney animated musicals), only a handful made a lasting impression. Films like High School Musical, The Producers, Les Miserables, La La Land, and most recently, The Greatest Showman.

It's the first film (and first musical) I've watched this year. It is a fictionalized biopic of American showman and circus proprietor P. T. Barnum who rose to fame at the turn of the 20th century for his Barnum & Bailey Circus.

A powerhouse cast led by Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zach Efron, Zendaya and Rebecca Ferguson gets the film going. It's easy to expect excellent performances from Jackman and Efron given their previous experience in Les Miserables and High School Musical respectively. The same is true for Zendaya who has a budding musical career while occasionally appearing in movies.

Both Williams and Ferguson are a revelation. I was surprised that the film's producers used The Voice's Loren Allred as Jenny Lind's singing voice. Nevertheless, Ferguson gave the role a powerful and convincing lip syncing that had me thinking it was actually her singing.

As for Williams, she stands out in her role as Barnum's ever-loyal wife Charity. She and Jackman are perhaps the only actors that have the most quotable and memorable performance in the film. Despite their age gap, their chemistry is evident and lovable. Their performance of "A Million Dreams" is the only song that got stuck in my head in the dozen of songs performed throughout the film.

The rest of the cast perform equally powerful as Barnum's bunch of peculiar and gifted circus attractions. Their message of promoting diversity, equality, and individuality strikes a chord at a time when such virtues are being attacked elsewhere. Their performance of "This Is Me" is a solid and firm stand in defense of these virtues.

Story-wise, while much of the plot is fictionalized, it resonates with audiences because much of them aren't really familiar with P. T. Barnum's life apart from his circus performances and were more focused on what they really want to see and hear from the movie—a man's struggle to crawl out of poverty, love amid disparity in social classes, social acceptance amid social inequality and rampant discrimination.

As such, audiences failed to notice the glaring historical inaccuracies and several composite characters that litter this film. As such, the tension from the false love triangle between Barnum, his wife and Jenny Lind affected audiences, even though in real life, the three neither had such an affair. As such, Barnum's relationship with Tom Thumb was glossed over to that of a caring benefactor than that of a child exploiter. As such, Barnum appears a champion of diversity, equality and individuality throughout the film as opposed to his actual exploitation of people with special abilities or physical characteristics.

An ignorant audience will almost always cling to a clever story that's powerfully acted by its leads. One might think their smiles and laughs are fake because they were led to think that Barnum was a benevolent man. But such whitewashing of P. T. Barnum's business ethics is so effective and convincing that one might even think it's another one of Barnum's hoaxes.

Even P. T. Barnum himself alludes this in the film when he said, "Those smiles aren’t fake. It doesn’t matter where they come from. The joy is real." Therefore, it doesn't matter if much of The Greatest Showman is more of myth than actual history—the joy, sadness and glee felt from watching this movie is real.

The Greatest Showman

Running time: 1 hr 54 min

Main Cast: Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson

Director: Michael Gracey

Writer(s): Bill Condon, Jenny Bicks

Released by: 20th Century Fox

Genre: Biography, Drama, Musical