THE GREATEST SHOWMAN

“Ladies and Gents this is the moment you’ve waited for.”

I’ll admit, the trailer for The Greatest Showman took me by surprise. I didn’t really know it was a thing until I watched it, but it looked like quite a good film. I didn’t plan on seeing it at the cinema, but now I have, and here we are. In fact, I think this is the first musical I’ve reviewed on here…

The Greatest Showman tells the story of P.T. Barnum, as he struggles through the early years of his life, until finally he brings together a group of outcasts and misfits to create the Barnum Circus, much like his real-life counter part did. I suppose you could say it’s sort of a biopic, but there’s obviously a lot that’s been exaggerated. One thing the film does well is the devotion of time to certain parts of his life. It flashes through the childhood/story-building years fairly quickly and before you know it he’s had the inspiration for the circus and is bringing it together. It’s probably better this way, as that is after all the point of the film.

Once the film gets to this point, it does take it’s time, and rightly so. It goes through the sort of cliché ups and downs, but this helps the narrative a lot. It’s believable that these people would be abused and miss-treated, and the film devotes a good amount of time, and a very satisfying pay off later on in the form of one of the film’s songs. Honesty, I can’t say a huge amount about the film, because it goes pretty much as you would expect it to. Not by any means in a bad way, but because the film focuses more on it’s characters and musical side.

Speaking of characters, obvious best performance goes to Hugh Jackman’s P.T. Barnum.

This film has been a passion project of Jackman's for some years now, and that’s clear to see in his performance. He brings a surprisingly emotional side to his character, especially in some of the earlier scenes when he’s down on his luck in the world. He portrays the character very, very nicely and much like everyone else in the film, he excels in the musical bits.

And now onto the main event…The songs. They’re great. Actually, that’s an understatement. As film musical songs go, they’re some of the best I’ve heard in a long, long time. There’s epic ones, sad ones, and sad ones that become epic ones. What more could you possibly want? I’d say there is only one that falls below the bar set by the rest, but that’s probably just my personal preference than anything else. What’s great about the songs is that not only do they progress the story at hand, but they pretty much all carry quite an important message, the best example of this being ‘This is me’, the satisfying pay off song I mentioned earlier. In fact, give it a watch here…You’ll be thankful you did…

Told you…

All in all, The Greatest Showman was the movie I was hoping it would be. It’s a light-hearted one, and every now and then that makes a nice change from the darker tones of modern cinema. The songs are superb as is the acting from all directions from start to finish. I’d say the only let down of the film is some of the exaggerations it makes, but as these are in the name of making a better film, I’m more than willing to let that go. Musical lover or not, The Greatest showman is a good fun, it’s that simple. It doesn’t get bogged down in setting up a story with complicated subplots and all that malarkey. There’s a man setting up a circus, and there’s some songs. Simple. And sometimes, simple is better. I look forward to watching it again in the future, and if you ever find yourself at a loose end, give it a watch, and you’ll see what I mean.