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The Greatest Showman (2017)
Celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
The Greatest Showman is a 2017 American biographical musical drama film directed by Michael Gracey in his directorial debut, written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon and starring Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, and Zendaya. Featuring nine original songs from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the film is based on the story and life of P.T. Barnum, a famous showman and entertainer, and his creation of the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the lives of its star attractions.
Principal photography began in New York City in November 2016. The film premiered on December 8, 2017, aboard RMS Queen Mary 2. It was released in the United States on December 20, 2017, by 20th Century Fox, seven months after Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus ceased operations. The film grossed $435 million worldwide, making it the fifth-highest-grossing live-action musical film of all time.
The film was praised for the performances, music, visuals, and production values, but was criticised for its artistic license. It received nominations for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Musical or Comedy for Jackman at the 75th Golden Globe Awards.
The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for the song “This Is Me”, was nominated for Best Original Song at the 90th Academy Awards and won the Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.
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The Greatest Showman (2017) Trailer
The Greatest Showman (2017) Reviews
That’s what “The Greatest Showman” captures.
The film starts with the title song “The Greatest Show,” a show-stopper with repetitive thumping percussion (reminiscent of Queen’s ferocious “We Will Rock You”). Hugh Jackman—in red impresario’s coat and top hat—takes us on a dazzling tour, with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey keeping the movements fluid, and all the actions connected, plunging you into the center ring.
The whole number comes from the brazen heart of showbiz: Make it interesting! Give ’em something to look at! Make sure you reach the cheap seats! Barnum croons seductively, “Just surrender cuz you feel the feeling taking over!” I obeyed without reservation.
During the next number, “A Million Dreams” the young and poor Barnum (Ellis Rubin) befriends a well-bred little girl named Charity Hallett (Skylar Dunn), and they dream of creating their own destiny. This is the first time in “The Greatest Showman” where a character stops speaking and starts to sing instead; the segue is gracefully handled, setting up the artificial device early on.
If you don’t set up that trope with confidence, it makes it look like you’re embarrassed to be doing a musical. By the end of the song, the little boy has become Hugh Jackman and the little girl has become Michelle Williams, leaping and twirling across the rooftop of their tenement, bed sheets on the line billowing to the beat.
Rebecca Ferguson plays Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” whom Barnum took on a whirlwind concert tour through America It was his entryway into “polite” society. Jenny Lind’s power ballad “Never Enough” makes you understand why Barnum, backstage, falls in love with her instantly, throwing his marriage into crisis. Ferguson may be lip-synching to Loren Allred’s breathtaking vocals, but it is her performance that carries.
Ashley Wallen choreographed the numbers and there are many innovative moments, where she uses the outer environment to inform the movements of the characters. In “The Other Side,” Barnum convinces a reticent Carlyle to join the circus, and as he sings, the bartender puts down shot glasses, swipes the bar with a cloth, all as accents to the beat.
The real standout, however, is “Rewrite the Stars,” the love song between Efron and Zendaya,taking place in the empty circus tent, when she flies on the trapeze far above him, and he tries to climb up the ropes to meet her. Up, down, they both go, sometimes coming together, dangling above the ground, or sweeping in a wide circle together around the periphery of the tent. It is a moment when the film—every element onscreen—merges and transforms into pure emotion. This is what a musical can do like no other artform.
He has something that cannot be manufactured, although many try, and that is old-school movie star charisma. Add to that a beautiful voice, plus dancing skills, plus a surprisingly ironic sense of humor, and he’s got the full package. It’s thrilling to see him in a big splashy musical. He’s very much at home.
Michelle Williams, with anachronistically long blonde hair, has a strong clear voice, and there’s something exhilarating about how she tosses herself into thin air, knowing Jackman will catch her. In what could be a thankless “wet blanket wife” part, Williams adds a spunky sense of adventure, showing us the kind of woman who would say “No” to a ladylike society-wife life, and fling herself into the unknown with her man.
The timing of this release is interesting. On May 21, 2017, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus folded up its tent for good, after 146 years of uninterrupted operation. Rocked by controversy due to criticisms of exploitation and animal abuse, they retired the elephant acts in 2016, but it was too late. Barnum was dogged by criticisms from the beginning.
Many of the “acts” were fakes. Barnum actually didn’t say the quote most associated with him (“There’s a sucker born every minute”) but he might as well have said it and his critics despised him for the assumption about popular entertainment and the regular folk who enjoy it. But in the film, Barnum, with a dazzling smile, explains to a skeptical journalist, “People come to my show for the pleasure of being hoodwinked.”
I was hoodwinked by “The Greatest Showman.” And it was indeed a pleasure. Ringling Brothers may have closed up shop, but Barnum lives on.
In style, if not substance, The Greatest Showman is reminiscent of the Disney film, Newsies. Like the 1992 live-action musical, The Greatest Showman comes to life when the characters are singing or dancing but struggles through the sequences in between.
The show-stopping numbers are well-choreographed and feature catchy tunes (courtesy of La La Land’s duo of Benj Pasek & Justin Paul) but the film’s dramatic arc, despite purportedly being “based on a true story”, is a string of clichés knitted together to tell an unremarkable story. Lead actor Hugh Jackman is charismatic and knows how to hold an audience’s attention during a musical sequence but this is far from his best performance.
Although The Greatest Showman claims to tell the tale of showman P.T. Barnum (Jackman), who leant his name to a circus during the 19th century, the narrative is as untrue and exaggerated as Barnum’s most outrageous falsifications. Also, in an attempt to be relevant, The Greatest Showman tries too hard to establish parallels between the misfits of Barnum’s troop and those suffering from discrimination in 2017 society.
As well-meaning as those thematic elements might be, they seem forced and largely ignore the underlying truth that Barnum was exploiting these people for personal gain. (The screenplay downplays this aspect, presenting the circus as a multi-cultural venue for self-empowerment.)
It’s astonishing how much more energy the musical numbers have than the purely dramatic sequences. This discrepancy highlights the film’s greatest strength but also represents its most apparent weakness. Every time Jackman or one of his co-stars starts to sing, you want to stay in your seat. Once the song is over, a bathroom break or visit to the snack bar seems appropriate.
The plot moves along a familiar trajectory. Barnum, the low-born son of a tailor, falls for a girl far above his station and, once he has made a little money (emphasis on little), he marries her. After working a series of conventional jobs to support his wife (Michelle Williams) and two daughters, Barnum takes a walk on the wild side and buys a museum.
When attendance is poor (there’s not a lot of interest in wax figures and the work of taxidermists), he replaces inert attractions with a show featuring human oddities: a bearded woman (Keala Settle), a dwarf (Sam Humphrey), a trapeze artist (Sendaya), and others of their ilk.
Barnum’s low-brow production becomes an overnight sensation and he recruits a partner, the younger and well-connected Philip Carlyle (Zac Efron), who arranges an audience with Queen Victoria. While in England, Barnum meets singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), the “Swedish Nightingale”, and convinces her to embark on a tour of the United States.
The predictable sweep of Barnum’s rise, fall, and resurrection prevents the movie from exploring any interesting or unexpected territory, so The Greatest Showman relies on two elements for its success: the songs, which are sufficiently contemporary to avoid alienating younger viewers (Pasek & Paul’s numbers are pop and hip-hop influenced), and Jackman’s reliable presence. The filmmakers aren’t discomfited by the anachronistic music and it proves to be The Greatest Showman’s most effective selling point.
The direct-to-the-screen movie musical (as opposed to the adapted play or remake) has been an endangered species for decades and the box office failure of Newsies back in 1992 nearly killed it. Its revival during the last couple of years with the songwriting of Pasek & Paul reminds us of how uplifting a well-executed screen musical sequence can be.
The Greatest Showman lacks the chops to compete against La La Land on a story level but it’s every bit as engaging (and perhaps even moreso) than the live-action re-imagining of Beauty & the Beast. It’s a family film whose infectious, crowd-pleasing song-and-dance numbers justify a 105-minute running length when the pedestrian story can’t.
- A movie review by James Berardinelli
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The Greatest Showman (2017) Credits
The Greatest Showman (2017)
139 minutes
Cast
Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum
Zac Efron as Phillip Carlyle
Michelle Williams as Charity Barnum
Rebecca Ferguson as Jenny Lind
Zendaya as Anne Wheeler
Fredric Lehne as Mr. Hallett
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as WD Wheeler
Paul Sparks as James Gordon Bennett
Director
- Michael Gracey
Screenplay
- Jenny Bicks
- Bill Condon
Music
- Justin Paul
- Benj Pasek
Cinematography
- Seamus McGarvey
Editor
- Joe Hutshing
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The Greatest Showman (2017) Plot
As a child, P. T. Barnum and his tailor father Philo work for the Hallett family. Barnum falls for the Halletts’ daughter Charity. When Charity attends finishing school, she and Barnum write to each other until reuniting as adults. They eventually marry and raise two daughters Caroline and Helen in New York City. They live a humble life; though Charity is happy, Barnum craves more.
Barnum loses his shipping clerk job when the company goes bankrupt, due to a typhoon that sank all the firm’s cargo vessels. He later secures a bank loan, deceptively using his former employer’s lost ships as “collateral”. He opens Barnum’s American Museum in downtown Manhattan which features various wax figures. Ticket sales are slow, so Caroline and Helen suggest showcasing something “alive”.
Barnum adds “freak” performers, such as bearded lady Lettie Lutz and dwarf man Charles Stratton. This garners higher attendance, but also protests and poor reviews from well-known critic James Gordon Bennett.
Barnum renames his venture, “Barnum’s Circus” and recruits playwright Phillip Carlyle to help generate publicity. Phillip is mesmerized by the African American trapeze artist, Anne Wheeler, but he hides his feelings. Phillip arranges for Barnum and his troupe to meet Queen Victoria.
Barnum persuades famed Swedish singer Jenny Lind to tour America, with him as her manager. Lind’s American debut is a success. During her song, Phillip’s parents see him and Anne holding hands. As Barnum gains favor with aristocratic patrons, he distances himself from his troupe, advising them to work without him. Dejected, they decide to stand against their local harassers.
When Phillip and Anne attend the theater together, they run into Phillip’s parents. They chastise him for “parading around with the help”. Phillip tries to convince Anne that they can be together, but she disagrees saying they will never be accepted socially.
As Barnum takes Lind on a U.S. tour, Charity, who stays home with the girls, feels isolated from her husband. While on tour, Lind becomes romantically attracted to Barnum. When he rebuffs her, she threatens to quit and later retaliates with a surprise kiss at the end of her last show, which is photographed by the press.
Barnum returns home to find his circus on fire, caused by a fight between protesters and the troupe. Phillip runs into the burning building to save Anne, not knowing that she has already escaped. He suffers serious injuries before Barnum rescues him. Bennett tells Barnum that the culprits have been caught and that Lind has cancelled her tour after Barnum’s “scandal”. Barnum’s mansion is foreclosed and Charity takes the girls to her parents’ home.
Devastated, Barnum retreats to a local bar. His troupe finds him there and say that despite their disappointments, they still consider themselves a family. Inspired, he resolves to build a new show and not let ambition rule him. Phillip awakens in a hospital with Anne by his side, while Barnum and Charity reconcile.
A recovering Phillip offers his share of the profits to help Barnum rebuild the circus in exchange for becoming a full partner, which Barnum readily accepts. To economize, Barnum transforms the enterprise into an open-air tent circus.
The revamped circus is a huge success and Barnum has Phillip take his place as the ringmaster so the former can spend more time with his family. Barnum leaves the circus early and arrives on an elephant to attend Caroline and Helen’s ballet recital.
The movie ends with a quote from P.T. Barnum that reads “The noblest art is that of making others happy”.
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The Greatest Showman (2017) Box office
The Greatest Showman spent 219 days in release, closing on July 26, 2018, having grossed $174.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $260.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $435 million, against a production budget of $84 million. It is the third-highest-grossing musical ever in North America and also the third-highest globally, and Deadline Hollywood estimated the film would turn a profit of $50–100 million.
In the United States and Canada, The Greatest Showman was released alongside Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and was projected to gross around $21 million from 3,006 theaters over its first six days. It took in $2.5 million on its first day and $2.1 million on its second. Over the three-day weekend, it grossed $9 million (for a six-day total of $19 million), finishing fourth at the box office, behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Pitch Perfect 3.
In its second weekend, the film grossed $15.5 million, again finishing 4th at the box office.[42] The weekend-to-weekend increase of 76.3% marked the largest ever for a film playing in over 3,000 theaters, and the fourth biggest ever. In its third week, the film dropped 11% to $14 million. The film made $13 million in its fourth weekend and $11 million in its fifth, finishing 4th and 5th at the box office, respectively.
The film continued to hold well in its sixth week of release, grossing $9.5 million and returning to 4th place, and again finished fourth in its seventh week, this time grossing $7.8 million (a drop of just 18%). It is the 14th-highest-grossing film that never reached first place at the American box office.
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The Greatest Showman (2017) Critical Response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 56% of 264 reviews are positive, and the average rating is 6/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “The Greatest Showman tries hard to dazzle the audience with a Barnum-style sense of wonder—but at the expense of its complex subject’s far more intriguing real-life story.”
On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on reviews from 43 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A” on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars and a 70% “definite recommend”.
Owen Gleiberman of Variety gave the film a positive review, writing, “The Greatest Showman is a concoction, the kind of film where all the pieces click into place, yet at an hour and 45 minutes it flies by, and the link it draws between P. T. Barnum and the spirit of today is more than hype.”
Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying, “With all that corn and cheese and old-timey sentiment, The Greatest Showman ends up scoring some very timely social arguments. P. T. Barnum himself would have approved the dramatic sleight of hand.” Steve Persall of Tampa Bay Times gave the film an ‘A’, and said, “The Greatest Showman is the feel-good movie the holiday season needs,” while William Bibbiani of IGN gave The Greatest Showman a score of 7.9 out of 10, and called the film, “wildly entertaining”.
Britton Peele of The Dallas Morning News said, “The story is interesting and the beats are well acted, but it’s the musical numbers that make The Greatest Showman.” Jackie K Cooper of HuffPost gave the film a score of 10/10 and wrote, “You will be overwhelmed by the music and magic that explode on the screen. The film has a message that should resonate with today’s world concerning acceptance and courage.” Hugh Armitage of Digital Spy said, “The Greatest Showman is a broad and solid crowd-pleaser. An undemanding spectacle for all the family.”
Alan Jones of the Radio Times called it “A joyously uplifting potpourri of visual resplendence, stylish choreography and solid gold magic, one engineered to approximate the lavish spectacle the movie musical once offered.”[59]
Sheila O’Malley of RogerEbert.com gave it 3.5 out of 4, stating “The Greatest Showman is an unabashed piece of pure entertainment punctuated by memorable songs.” James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film 3 out of 4, and said, “The film has show-stopping well-choreographed numbers with catchy tunes,”[61] and Calvin Wilson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called the film “highly enjoyable.”
Carl Kozlowski of Pasadena Weekly gave the film an ‘A’, calling it “Groundbreaking & grandly innovative.”[63] Sean P. Means of The Salt Lake Tribune gave The Greatest Showman 3.5 out of 4, stating, “A strong cast give emotional power to this romanticized, tune-filled biography.”
Manuela Lazic of Little White Lies gave it 4 out of 5, saying, “The Greatest Showman deserves to become a Christmas classic. The film’s severe romanticism and ridiculous but affecting enthusiasm make it irresistibly life-affirming.” Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and called it, “A fantasia of song and dance, a joyous exercise in pure entertainment that is made for the holiday crowd.”
Conversely, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film a negative review, criticizing the songs and characters and saying “There’s idiotic, and there’s magnificent, but The Greatest Showman is that special thing that happens sometimes. It’s magnificently idiotic. It’s an awful mess, but it’s flashy.
The temptation is to cover your face and watch it through your fingers, because it’s so earnest and embarrassing and misguided—and yet it’s well made.” In a negative review for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney wrote “This ersatz portrait of American big-top tent impresario P. T. Barnum is all smoke and mirrors, no substance. It hammers pedestrian themes of family, friendship and inclusivity while neglecting the fundaments of character and story.”
Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gave the film 1.5 out of 4 stars, saying, “How do you cast a virtuoso Hugh Jackman as P. T. Barnum, spare no expense in production values, add a score by Oscar and Tony winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and still end up with the shrill blast of nothing that is The Greatest Showman? Ask first-time director Michael Gracey, who cut his teeth on commercials and music videos without ever mastering the crucial knack of building snippets of musical comedy and drama into a satisfying whole.”
Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film’s failures “are rooted in something deeper: a dispiriting lack of faith in the audience’s intelligence, and a dawning awareness of its own aesthetic hypocrisy. You’ve rarely seen a more straight-laced musical about the joys of letting your freak flag fly.”
Rhoda Roberts, arts director of the Sydney Opera House, criticized the film for failing to address that Barnum coerced and kidnapped native peoples to perform in human zoos as a form of entertainment.
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The Greatest Showman (2017) Accolades
Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
AARP Movies for Grownups Awards | February 5, 2018 | Best Grownup Love Story | The Greatest Showman | Won | [80][81] |
Academy Awards | March 4, 2018 | Best Original Song | “This Is Me” – Benj Pasek and Justin Paul | Nominated | [82][83] |
American Music Awards | October 9, 2018 | Favorite Soundtrack | The Greatest Showman | Nominated | [84] |
Billboard Music Awards | May 20, 2018 | Top Soundtrack | The Greatest Showman: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | Nominated | [85] |
Billboard Music Awards | May 1, 2019 | Top Soundtrack | The Greatest Showman: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | Won | [86] |
Casting Society of America | January 18, 2018 | Big Budget – Comedy | Bernard Telsey, Tiffany Little Canfield, Rori Bergman and Patrick Goodwin | Won | [87] |
Costume Designers Guild | February 20, 2018 | Excellence in Period Film | Ellen Mirojnick | Nominated | [88] |
Critics’ Choice Movie Awards | January 11, 2018 | Best Song | “This Is Me” – Benj Pasek and Justin Paul | Nominated | [89] |
Dorian Awards | February 24, 2018 | Campy Flick of the Year | The Greatest Showman | Nominated | [90] [91] |
Empire Awards | March 18, 2018 | Best Costume Design | The Greatest Showman | Nominated | [92] [93] |
Best Make-up And Hairstyling | The Greatest Showman | Nominated | |||
Georgia Film Critics Association | January 12, 2018 | Best Original Song | “This Is Me” – Benj Pasek and Justin Paul | Nominated | [94] |
Golden Globe Awards | January 7, 2018 | Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Hugh Jackman | Nominated | [95] |
Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | The Greatest Showman | Nominated | |||
Best Original Song – Motion Picture | “This Is Me” – Benj Pasek and Justin Paul | Won | |||
Golden Reel Awards | February 18, 2018 | Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Musical | Jen Monnar, Jim Harrison, Jeff Carson, Peter Myles and Sheri Ozeki | Won | [96] |
Grammy Awards | February 10, 2019 | Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media | The Greatest Showman: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | Won | [97] |
Best Song Written for Visual Media | “This Is Me” – Benj Pasek and Justin Paul | Nominated | |||
Guild of Music Supervisors Awards | February 8, 2018 | Best Music Supervision for Film: Budgeted Over 25 Million Dollars | Benj Pasek and Justin Paul | Nominated | [98] |
Best Song/Recording Created for a Film | “This Is Me” – Benj Pasek and Justin Paul | Nominated | |||
Heartland Film Festival | December 31, 2017 | Truly Moving Picture Award | Michael Gracey | Won | [99] |
Kids’ Choice Awards | March 24, 2018 | Favorite Movie | The Greatest Showman | Nominated | [100] |
Favorite Movie Actress | Zendaya | Won | |||
Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild | February 24, 2018 | Feature Motion Picture: Best Period and/or Character Makeup | Nicki Ledermann, Tania Ribalow and Sunday Englis | Nominated | [101] |
Saturn Awards | June 27, 2018 | Best Action or Adventure Film | The Greatest Showman | Won | [102][103] |
Best Costume Design | Ellen Mirojnick | Nominated | |||
Best Music | John Debney and Joseph Trapanese | Nominated | |||
Teen Choice Awards | August 12, 2018 | Choice Breakout Movie Star | Keala Settle | Nominated | [104] |
Choice Collaboration | “Rewrite the Stars” – Zac Efron and Zendaya | Won | |||
Choice Drama Movie | The Greatest Showman | Won | |||
Choice Drama Movie Actor | Zac Efron | Won | |||
Hugh Jackman | Nominated | ||||
Choice Drama Movie Actress | Zendaya | Won | |||
Choice Liplock | Zac Efron and Zendaya | Nominated | |||
Choice Movie Ship | Zac Efron and Zendaya | Won | |||
Choice Pop Song | “This Is Me” – Keala Settle | Nominated |
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The Greatest Showman (2017) Movie Info
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