'The Greatest Showman' offers glossy, sanitized portrait of P.T. Barnum
“The Greatest Showman” — ★ ★ ½
First thing's first: Though it features a character named “P.T. Barnum,” “The Greatest Showman” is in no way a factual account of the life of the celebrated 19th-century circus founder and huckster. In fact, you'll have to completely set aside any unsavory stories you may have heard about the real-life Barnum, because this one is played by the ever-charming Hugh Jackman. Resistance is futile.
Directed by first-timer Michael Gracey, the musical never aspires to be anything more than a heaping helping of holiday cheese. For the most part, it meets that low bar, though you'll have to suspend disbelief at every turn.
The story begins during Barnum's boyhood, when, while working in his father's tailor shop, he falls in love with Charity, the daughter of a wealthy client who would never let his only child run off with the son of tradesman. But once the girl becomes an adult, played by Michelle Williams, she can't be talked out of marrying her beloved.
Fast-forward a few years, to when they're struggling to make ends meet. Barnum dreams up a novel way to make money, via a museum of curiosities, complete with human attractions. He forms his troupe during a musical montage: There's the bearded lady (Keala Settle) and tiny Tom Thumb (Sam Humphrey), not to mention the sibling trapeze artists W.D. and Anne Wheeler (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Zendaya). When W.D. warns that people won't like seeing black performers onstage, the showman replies, with a smirk: “Oh, I'm counting on it.”
At first, Barnum isn't entirely sensitive to his employees. When he tries to recruit the man whom he would christen Tom Thumb, Barnum tells him, “They're laughing anyway. You might as well get paid.” But soon, he's as progressive as a 21st-century Twitter liberal.
Not that this sanitized Barnum is a saint. He finds success addictive, becoming a social climber, to the dismay of the beatific Charity. Meanwhile, Barnum's new partner, a blue blood with the appropriately hoity-toity name of Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron), starts falling for Anne.
Will you buy any of it? Not really. In part, that's because everything about the movie feels artificial, from the singers' blatantly Auto-Tuned voices to the CGI acrobatics. “Does it bother you that everything you're selling is fake?” Barnum is asked, and it's hard not to apply the question to the film itself.
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Starring: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams
Directed by: Michael Gracey
Other: A Twentieth Century Fox release. Rated PG. Contains fight scenes. 105 minutes