Finally I got round to watching this film, so did it live up to the hype?

The Greatest Showman follows Phineas, a man who wants to give his wife all of the wonder and splendour that he believes she is deserving of, but that comes at a price and isn’t always easy. As a young man Phineas helped to tailor for the rich and this is how he meets said future wife. However, in this rag to riches story, Phineas of course doesn’t have a lot of money so he soon finds an outlet to be able to make money, and that is by opening up a circus that shows off weird and wonderful people.

This was my first issue with this film, they made these people spectacles, they were no longer human beings but a way to make money, especially as we saw that he used tactics to make them seem more extravagant than what they originally were. Seeing the bearded lady and the 700lb man etc. be sidelined when Phineas begins to gain fame and stardom from this business really hurt because they didn’t deserve that, and it really made Phineas into this anti-hero that I didn’t enjoy watching because he wasn’t a nice guy.

At the start of the film you’re rooting for Phineas because you want him to become something incredible to give his family the life he believes they deserve, but as the film goes on you move away from seeing Phineas as this wonderful human being and more as a trickster and someone who doesn’t deserve all that he’s got because he takes it for granted. He puts his own fame above his family’s needs and even causes them to to separate for a while because he is so selfish. Over the course of the film I started to care more for the ‘freaks’ of his show because they’re people that are actually down and out on their luck, and it’s very hard to see the underdog stay the underdog and not rise to be something incredible.

I can see why this film is so popular, the songs are very catchy, Zac Efron and Zendaya are absolutely gorgeous as always, and while Phineas is a very easy to hate man the actual story is very intriguing. To see someone go from rags to riches is always going to be an inspirational story however it’s not one that I would watch again. I may recommend it to people who enjoy musicals, but to the every day audience I don’t really think it deserves the hype and really didn’t live up to it, so it would not be one that I would watch again.

What do you think of The Greatest Showman?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding