Monday 19 February 2018

How Wolverine Invented the Circus


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.


No comments:

Post a Comment