THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (2017) ***

I got a Movie Pass for Christmas.  If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s basically a pre-paid credit card that let’s you see a movie a day for free.  One of the benefits of having a Movie Pass is that you can take a chance on a movie you might’ve otherwise skipped.  After all, it’s free, so what do you have to lose?

I’m not the biggest fan of musicals, but my daughter wanted to see The Greatest Showman, so I figured I’d tag along with her and check it out.  As it turns out, it’s a solid family-friendly movie that audiences of all ages should enjoy.  I can’t say that the songs are particularly great (they eventually start to sound the same after a while), but they are performed with such warmth and heart by the earnest cast that they are hard to dismiss.  

The film acts as a loose biography of P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman) as it follows his meager upbringings as a tailor’s son to circus impresario.  Barnum makes a name for himself when he opens a museum dedicated to human oddities and uses real-life freaks in his show to draw crowds.  He then uses his newfound social standing to rub it in the faces of those who looked down on him all his life.  When he takes a stab at promoting legitimate theater with a beautiful opera singer (Rebecca Ferguson), it drives a wedge between Barnum and his wife (Michelle Williams) and he almost loses his family. 

The Greatest Showman is at its best when it shows the camaraderie between Barnum and the freaks.  Since he is the rare person who makes the effort and tries to get to know them, they agree to join up with his circus.  He gives them a platform to perform and assures them that yes, people will most assuredly laugh at them.  However, people are going to be laughing no matter what, so they might as well get paid for it.  

The family drama with Williams and Jackman’s two daughters is fairly absorbing and the subplot where Zac Efron and Zendaya fall in love is rather charming too.  The only real weakness stems from the rushed pacing as Barnum goes from being down on his luck to high as a kite so much that he often seems bipolar.  You wish that there had been a little room for the character to breathe a little bit in between his losses and triumphs.  Some of that has to do with the way some of the songs are shoehorned into the narrative.  Other than that relatively minor quibble, The Greatest Showman is a lot of fun and is a great vehicle for the charms of Jackman who shows there’s bound to be plenty of life after Wolverine.