The Greatest Showman

Inspired by the imagination of P. T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman is an original musical that celebrates the birth of show business & tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.

Review

This movie is absolutely fantastic! In my opinion The Greatest Showman is one of the most re-watchable movies that has come around in a long time and the fact that its soundtrack topped the charts in 2018, spending a massive 21 weeks at number-one is a real credit to everyone involved in making this masterpiece. In a time when musicals are scarce, The Greatest Showman brings originality and fun back to a genre that’s lost its popularity over the years. Many musicals are seen as ‘classics’ and I have no doubt that The Greatest Showman will go down in history as another film added to that list.

Since 2009, this film was a dream project for Hugh Jackman and it really shows in his performance but then again, Jackman of course is no stranger to delivering knock-out performances and has experience with musicals on Broadway and big roles in other films such as Les Misérables. You really get the sense of his determination and passion towards his character and the inspiring story. It’s worth stating that you may read some reviews about the inaccuracy of Jackman’s portrayal of P. T. Barnum and how he really treated people however please take these comments with a pinch of salt, The Greatest Showman is not meant to be a re-telling of a dark story but instead a motivational, feel good musical about the creation of the circus with catchy and memorable songs and an array of colourful and interesting characters.

According to Jackman, the seven years the movie spent in development was in part due to studios unwillingness to take a risk on an original musical but this is by far the best element of the movie. The soundtrack and in particular the song ‘This is me’ is still being played on radio stations to this day and at the time of me writing this review the album has been re-released with the songs being sung by some of the biggest artist/groups in the world e.g. Pink, Years & Years, Jess Glynne, Kelly Clarkson etc…

The Greatest Showman has a stellar cast including Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya and Rebecca Ferguson all of which were fully committed to providing the audience with a great movie and pure entertainment. When the movie was in the process of being green lit, Hugh Jackman had surgery on his nose due to skin cancer and he was told by his doctor that he shouldn’t sing however when it came to the last song ‘From Now On’, Jackman could not help himself and had to join in which resulted in his stitches breaking. You can find a clip of this moment on YouTube which I recommend watching as this is just 1 example of the lengths the cast and crew went to in order to get the go ahead.

The design and set pieces in The Greatest Showman create a feeling of escapism, they are extremely eye catching, mesmerising and chaotic, everything you expect a real circus to be like. The make-up and costume designs in the film were also very impressive, using bright colours all around with great attention to detail. The choreography is well planned out and the dance sequences really match the mood of the song being sung and in doing so creates the emotion that was intended.

I believe everyone will enjoy this movie, I went to the cinema to watch The Greatest Showman with a group of people which included some blokes who are your typical “unless there is a man firing a bazooka, I’m not interested” and even their feet were tapping throughout the film. It has a great story, interesting characters and songs you will be singing long after the film has ended.