THE GREATEST SHOWMAN SUMMARY

Running away to join the circus was once a dream of many children. The
lure of the crowds, the excitement of traveling to cities all over the globe. Had it
not been for one man, P.T. Barnum, this dream may not have ever been possible.
His visionary creation of the circus is explored in the musical THE GREATEST
SHOWMAN.
Phineas Taylor Barnum (Hugh Jackman) has a dream. Having grown up is
abject poverty, he wants to give his wife Charity (Michelle Williams) and two
daughters the life he feels they deserve. After losing his umpteenth job, he strikes
upon an idea to open a museum of oddities and the macabre. Despite his best
efforts, no one is buying tickets, so he comes up with another idea. Based on
something his daughters say, combined with a memory from his childhood, he
advertises for strange acts, thus beginning what is to become Barnum’s Circus
Even through this brings in the crowds, and succeeds in thoroughly
entertaining them, the reviews are less than stellar. He approaches Phillip Carlyle
(Zac Efron), a playwright who, despite his plays being successful with the high
society set, feels his work are empty. Barnum convinces him to join the circus in
hopes are raising he appeal.
The Greatest Showman is a particular modern musical extravaganza is the
classic Hollywood style. To drive this point home right off the top, the movie uses
both the older version of the 20th Century Fox logo and the current one. Also, in
classic Hollywood style, it takes a much more complex true story, finds the basic
elements and creates a film from those.
At its heart, The Greatest Showman is about wanting to belong.
Barnum is a man who has fought hard to become affluent, mostly to prove to
Charity’s rich father, someone Barnum’s father used to be a tailor for, that he could
give her the life she grew up accustomed to living. His ambition becomes an
absession until he finally reaches a level of success, at which point he aspires to
raise to another level. He gets trapped in an endless circle of upward mobility,
eventually losing sight of what it was all for, in the first place
Carlyle also wants to belong, though his ambition is different. He
wants to be an artist, that’s what drives him to join up with Barnum more than
anything. He finally feels like part of a real community, even if being a member of
the circus hurts his personal standing in the society Barnum is so keen to break
into, especially when he falls in love with Anne Wheeler (Zendaya), one half of a
brother-sister trapeze team, who happens to be black.
Of course, it’s also about the members of the circus. They finally get a
chance to feel what it’s like to belong to regular society. The circus gives people
like them the opportunity to show the world they are more than what’s on the
surface, more than just oddities to be shunned and avoided in the streets; that they
have talents of their own, and pretty amazing ones, at that.
This brings me to the music. The songs were created by the team of
Benj Pasek and Justine Paul, the duo respondsible not only for the songs in La La
Land, but also for several Broadway shows, including a Christmas Story and Dear
Evan Hansen. The songs here in the Greatest Showman are fantastic, each one a
showstopper in their own way. Combine with incredible choreography, they are
what truly drive the film. The number where Barnum is trying to convince Carlyle
to join him while playing him with drinks is worth the ticket price, alone.
As with some other musicals based on real life characters, like the
Sound of Music, liberty has been taken with the story. Barnum’s life much more
complex, involving many more facets than the Greatest Showman present to us.
Yet, like those other musicals, this doesn’t detract from the overall end product.
The filmmaker used what they felt was important to the type of tale