The Greatest Showman should have been a Cats-size disaster. The world was hardly crying out for a musical about the life and times of P.T. Barnum, much less a hokey, whitewashed version propped up with questionable CGI, non-existent character development and poorly costumed misfits with obvious press-on beards.
Yet somehow, The Greatest Showman snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Critics mostly skewered the movie, but the song was a massively profitable sleeper at the box office, as was the soundtrack, which spent almost a year at the top of the charts.
The songs are almost certainly the reason the film succeeds – although the cross-generational appeal of Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron and Zendaya probably didn’t hurt either. Shamelessly anachronistic as they may be, there’s an impressively consistent hit rate on the soundtrack, with at least three of the cuts still firmly established as reality show audition piece staples. You’d be hard pressed to find anybody who’d admit that the rewatch value comes from the rich and detailed character development, anyway…
On this week’s podcast, we break it all down, including the mystery of Jackman’s seemingly indeterminate age, the world-famous Soprano singer who sounds suspiciously like Kelly Clarkson, yet another thankless wife role for Michelle Williams and many, many hat switches…
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Next week, we’re starting a new musical-themed season with a mid-90s feminist classic. Until then, happy listening and remember – never force your actors to sing live in a movie musical. It never ends well…