La La Land
probably among my top ten or fifteen favourite films. It’s a beautiful,
heartbreaking film, one that aches with loss and yet is still imbued with such
joy that even in still images its cast seem to be moving. The Greatest Showman is none of those things. What it is is a lazy,
tawdry piece of tat that somehow manages to be over- and under-written at the
same time.
The Greatest Showman, starring Hugh
Jackman and directed by some mediocrity or other, is a musical biopic of PT
Barnum, the founder of the Barnum and Bailey circus. It starts with Barnum
(Jackman) as a child, the son of a poor tailor, with a crush on a rich girl.
Five minutes later his father dies and he’s out on his arse, and we get a
montage of him being poor that might have elicited some emotion from m e if
there’d been any attempt to make me care about this kid. Five minutes later
(I’m exaggerating, but not by much) he’s grown up and married the rich girl
with basically no difficulty. We see her father slap child-Barnum for making
her laugh, then literally the next time we see her she’s riding off into the
sunset with adult Barnum. This is a problem that will recur throughout the film
– a problem appears that seems significant, only to be resolved almost
immediately. It happens at what should be the pivotal moment in the film, when
Barnum loses his job and decides to take out a massive loan in order to set up
his circus. You expect this to be his big risk – he’ll offer his home as
collateral, his entire life will be ruined if the business venture fails, and
he’ll have to grow as a character in order to succeed. What happens is, he
fraudulently takes out the loan, using a non-existent fleet of ships as
collateral. He risks basically nothing – if the circus goes under, he’s in the
same situation he was in before.
This is
a good metaphor for one of the major flaws in the film – there’s no conflict. Barnum
takes a leap of faith by setting up a freak show, and after a quick montage,
he’s a millionaire. Barnum’s wife leaves him because she thinks he’s having an
affair (and also because he bankrupted the family), then they sing a song at
the beach and she takes him back. The building that houses the circus burns
down, Barnum says “let’s do it in a tent”, and – I swear I’m not exaggerating –
we cut to a big musical number in a hugely successful tent circus. That’s the
end of the film. No drama, no conflict, no real risk for anyone.
I want
to elaborate, here, on something I mentioned earlier – about the film being
both over- and under-written. On the one hand, there is a stupid amount going
on – you have Barnum’s attempts to make a name for himself (and shove his
success in his in-laws’ faces), the prejudice the circus performers face
(because they’re funny-looking, obviously, not because most of them are black –
there definitely weren’t any problems for black people in 19th
century America, or at least none that the writers considered screen-worthy),
and a love story between Zac Effron and a trapeze artist who I’m only now realizing
looks kind of like Vanessa Hudgens. And yet, it still feels like nothing
happens, because there’s no characterization, no space for any problems to
develop enough to become significant, and no moment of tension that isn’t
resolved almost instantly, as if the writers were terrified of anything
resembling an involving story.
And
come to think of it, isn’t PT Barnum the least interesting character in this story?
Why didn’t we get a film about a black brother-and-sister trapeze act who came
to New York from the deep South to make their fortune? Why didn’t we get a film
about the bearded woman who can sing like an angel, but is shunned by society
because of her face, or the others who have been so outcast that the only way
they can make a living is by being exhibited in a freak show? Why didn’t we get
a film about Dog Boy? I want a three-part, Godfather—style epic about Dog Boy,
including a scene where he punches PT Barnum in the dick for deciding that his
stage name would be Dog Boy. Seriously, how did that conversation go? You’ve
got this incredibly athletic man who’s covered from head to toe in hair. Should
you call him the Wolf Man? The Incredible Half-Ape? Nah mate, fucking Dog Boy.
Throughout all this, we are presented with a series of what
I can only describe as crap pop songs. The mark of a great musical score is
that it sticks in your head for days after you see the film, but the songs in The Greatest Showman are so generic I
forgot what they sounded like as I was hearing them. Not one of them is remotely
interesting, affecting, or memorable in any way.
This leads
me to the cardinal sin of this film. I could forgive more or less every other
flaw – poor writing, pacing, directing, an overwrought score, uninteresting set
design, the fact that one of the actors has no surname for some reason – so
long as I felt like the filmmakers had tried their best, but as the credits
rolled I was left with the overwhelming impression that no one involved with
the writing and directing of this pile of shite had actually put much effort
in. Everything, from the songs to the dialogue to the endless failed attempts
at a plot, is half-arsed. That is the ultimate sin for any artist. If you give
your best effort and fail, there’s still something noble in the attempt – you can
respect yourself for what you did. But when you phone it in, all you’re doing
is taking up space that could have been taken up by someone who gives a fuck
about what they do.
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