The Greatest Showman is a 2017 production from Chernin Entertainment and TSG Entertainment directed by Michael Gracey in his directorial debut. The screenplay was written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon, the first of which also wrote the story itself. The story’s main protagonist is portrayed by Hugh Jackman, alongside Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya and Rebecca Ferguson in other important roles. The movies score a 7.6/10 on IMDb but received a rather awful 48 Metascore.
The Story
The story of how P.T. Barnum rose from nothing up into the upper classes of society with his circus seems like a truly remarkable one. However, I believe this movie failed to deliver on the promise of such a good story. The story often makes use of time jumps over large periods which left some important parts from the story either unexplained or very shortly addressed.
Everything starts good, telling us how Barnum grew up in very poor conditions, shaping his future outlook on society. But after he gets his loan and his circus gets up and running, we see him transform from the nice man he was, helping these ‘other’ people with their life, to suddenly becoming a man of the riches himself. He buys the extreme mansion, starts touring with Jenny Lind and disregard his circus. This felt very out of place to me. We get to know Barnum as someone who will never leave the circus down, but after a little success that is the first thing he does, and he pays for it.
After the whole part with Jenny Lind is over, which was by far the worst part of this movie, we get back to normal. This gives us a good ending with Barnum getting the circus up and running again, together with Carlyle. Him passing the hat to his apprentice so he can see his daughters grow up was a very nice moment for the story.
The Characters
Barnum’s character has been discussed in the story part of this review, so I’ll leave that be. Apart from Barnum, there are only two characters who play a role of any significance; Carlyle and Anne. These two lifted the movie to a higher level, with strong performances from Zendaya and Zac Efron. Their impossible love story combined with the musical aspect, in which these actors shine, gave us the best moments of this movie.
The Production
First of all, it is interesting to note that this is Michael Gracey directorial debut. I feel like he did an okay job, nothing great but not bad. In the end, the desire to make it a musical alongside a rather bad story made it hard to create a good movie out of it. The songs, the costumes, the stunts, are all great and something where this movie shines. In the CGI department, there could have been some better choices, with some rather odd scenes being shot in front of a, painfully obvious, greenscreen.