Lighting up Topics like inclusion, racism and patriarchalism. The loveliness of America in the 1800s straight into your living room. The Greatest Showman tackles nearly all topics of today's social world. And does so in a highly entertaining, stunning and even touching atmosphere.
Smoke and Mirrors or "How to get away with fraud". P.T. Barnum's life is completely build up on a lie. A lie where one asks himself "Who did a bank not know or notice that they are being lied to?". So, after Barnum fooled his bank, he buys an old museum with old stuffed animals. An idea that certainly is not good. What was Barnum thinking? Anyway, this museum is not very well visited, actually, his own wife bought three tickets. Why I do not know, probably just to tell her husband that they sold three tickets that day. When his daughters tell him that he has too many dead things in his museum, he starts looking for curious human beings, which he finds plentiful of.
A question one should ask oneself: How can they build a former museum into a theatre and then into an opera hall with no downtime?
Twice the pride, double the fall But instead of taking on responsibility for his oddities, he is just trying to get into the upper class and to be accepted by the community. Betraying his starting crew, the people who bring him the money and trusted him, people who were never accepted by anyone, after Barnum met the opera singer Jenny Lind, a tool to get him accepted into the upper class, the downfall of P.T. Barnum begins.
Doesn't he realize that defying his oddities is making them leave and leaving him with no one to run his shows? Why are they running his shows after he obviously rejected them and offended them?
On the first look, it is shown that everyone in the city hates the actors and rooting from that hate, the shows as well. But who are the people that watch his shows? They are very well visited. So well visited that he can pay back his loan in no time and buy an old mansion and repair it. In the end, a tour through America cannot use all of his savings!
And suddenly, when Barnum is touring through America, the shows, left under the supervision of his junior partner Phillip Carlyle, are very unappreciated. Was Barnum the factor why everyone was visiting the shows? Now that he is absent, nobody enjoys the shows anymore? This unenjoyment is even going thus far as to start a brawl inside the circus. Particularly people from the working class are feeling offended by the shows and set the building on fire. That happens after a disaster with Jenny Lind appeared, leading her to kiss Barnum right in front of photographers, forcing his wife to leave him. So, after he lost his wife and his building, his house is seized by the bank. So he hasn't paid back his loan?
Being left with nothing is what Barnum needs to be cleansed. The fire and everything connected to it marks rock bottom, the point where everything is lost he feared to lose. The moment he starts to get back up is the moment where he rescues his partner from the fire in the circus. The moment he regains hope is the moment when his oddities find him in a bar, drinking to forget his sorrows, with that the third act ends and the fourth act, called dénounment, where he starts to rebuild his life, gaining back his wife and children, rebuilding the circus in a tent, going back to his family and giving the reigns of the circus to his partner, Phillip Carlyle.
The Last Scene A scene that is highly unrealistic. What kind of tent hast that much space for actors and two elephants to run that much of a distance? They had to build that thing as big as a football field! Ok, not quite as big, but half a field surely.
And why gets Phillip suddenly standing ovations as he slides in? Apparently, when Barnum was touring America and he was left alone, everyone was hating the shows during that time. Now they love him? Strange change, but ok.
Also, how is Barnum watching his girls grow up, without any money? Or is he keeping the reigns of the circus and just letting Phillip develop the shows? So, like a CEO that owns the company but is always on holidays on the Bahamas.
Music The music is one, if not even THE best element of the whole film.
The Duo "Pasek and Paul" wrote the texts for this movie, as did they for the movie La La Land back in 2016. Songs who go straight into one's ear. Yes, they are very artificial, but I think that is what makes them great, thus appealing to a broader audience, opening the genre of musical theatre and musical up.
Summary The Greatest Showman is a very good, classical musical story, easy to watch and follow.
The only critique I have is that it is a very clicheé-like story from the classic American Dream. One that has nothing is able to build an enormous wealth just by working hard. A very nice story, but not one that is grounded in reality.
Review by Daniel ScherndlVIP 6BlockedParentSpoilers2019-10-21T18:57:04Z— updated 2020-04-02T20:28:43Z
Lighting up
Topics like inclusion, racism and patriarchalism. The loveliness of America in the 1800s straight into your living room. The Greatest Showman tackles nearly all topics of today's social world. And does so in a highly entertaining, stunning and even touching atmosphere.
Smoke and Mirrors
or "How to get away with fraud". P.T. Barnum's life is completely build up on a lie. A lie where one asks himself "Who did a bank not know or notice that they are being lied to?". So, after Barnum fooled his bank, he buys an old museum with old stuffed animals. An idea that certainly is not good. What was Barnum thinking? Anyway, this museum is not very well visited, actually, his own wife bought three tickets. Why I do not know, probably just to tell her husband that they sold three tickets that day. When his daughters tell him that he has too many dead things in his museum, he starts looking for curious human beings, which he finds plentiful of.
A question one should ask oneself: How can they build a former museum into a theatre and then into an opera hall with no downtime?
Twice the pride, double the fall
But instead of taking on responsibility for his oddities, he is just trying to get into the upper class and to be accepted by the community. Betraying his starting crew, the people who bring him the money and trusted him, people who were never accepted by anyone, after Barnum met the opera singer Jenny Lind, a tool to get him accepted into the upper class, the downfall of P.T. Barnum begins.
Doesn't he realize that defying his oddities is making them leave and leaving him with no one to run his shows? Why are they running his shows after he obviously rejected them and offended them?
On the first look, it is shown that everyone in the city hates the actors and rooting from that hate, the shows as well. But who are the people that watch his shows? They are very well visited. So well visited that he can pay back his loan in no time and buy an old mansion and repair it. In the end, a tour through America cannot use all of his savings!
And suddenly, when Barnum is touring through America, the shows, left under the supervision of his junior partner Phillip Carlyle, are very unappreciated. Was Barnum the factor why everyone was visiting the shows? Now that he is absent, nobody enjoys the shows anymore? This unenjoyment is even going thus far as to start a brawl inside the circus. Particularly people from the working class are feeling offended by the shows and set the building on fire. That happens after a disaster with Jenny Lind appeared, leading her to kiss Barnum right in front of photographers, forcing his wife to leave him. So, after he lost his wife and his building, his house is seized by the bank. So he hasn't paid back his loan?
Being left with nothing is what Barnum needs to be cleansed. The fire and everything connected to it marks rock bottom, the point where everything is lost he feared to lose. The moment he starts to get back up is the moment where he rescues his partner from the fire in the circus. The moment he regains hope is the moment when his oddities find him in a bar, drinking to forget his sorrows, with that the third act ends and the fourth act, called dénounment, where he starts to rebuild his life, gaining back his wife and children, rebuilding the circus in a tent, going back to his family and giving the reigns of the circus to his partner, Phillip Carlyle.
The Last Scene
A scene that is highly unrealistic. What kind of tent hast that much space for actors and two elephants to run that much of a distance? They had to build that thing as big as a football field! Ok, not quite as big, but half a field surely.
And why gets Phillip suddenly standing ovations as he slides in? Apparently, when Barnum was touring America and he was left alone, everyone was hating the shows during that time. Now they love him? Strange change, but ok.
Also, how is Barnum watching his girls grow up, without any money? Or is he keeping the reigns of the circus and just letting Phillip develop the shows? So, like a CEO that owns the company but is always on holidays on the Bahamas.
Music
The music is one, if not even THE best element of the whole film.
The Duo "Pasek and Paul" wrote the texts for this movie, as did they for the movie La La Land back in 2016. Songs who go straight into one's ear. Yes, they are very artificial, but I think that is what makes them great, thus appealing to a broader audience, opening the genre of musical theatre and musical up.
Summary
The Greatest Showman is a very good, classical musical story, easy to watch and follow.
The only critique I have is that it is a very clicheé-like story from the classic American Dream. One that has nothing is able to build an enormous wealth just by working hard. A very nice story, but not one that is grounded in reality.
Rating: 75/100