The Greatest Showman

Today the Greatest Showman or rather PT Barnum reinvented. To cut a not very well explained story short, Barnum (Hugh Jackman) launches a museum of curiosities with the support of his wife and long time sweetheart Charity (Michelle Williams). This is just the latest in a long list of money making schemes he’s tried. It bombs and even their two daughters point out how dull it is.

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Hence he turns it in a circus of ‘freaks’ or rather not so elaborate hoaxes. In which he is aided by the financial clout of Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron) who invests in Barnum’s venture for reasons that aren’t made very clear.

Their circus causes an uproar but a popular one with it’s dwarves, giants, bearded ladies etc. Barnum though soon moves on as promoter to Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), a famous Swedish singer, whom he persuades to tour America.

His ‘freaks’ freak out when he sidelines them for Lind, as does his wife, but before long Lind has walked out on him too. At this point, in a decidedly modern day twist, the film turns things on it’s head and Barnum becomes a sort of social justice warrior giving jobs and a voice to the world’s minorities.

Carlyle meanwhile is falling in love with Anne (Zendaya) who is one half of a brother and sister trapeze act who happen, not very sensationally, to be black. For our sins they treat us to a dreadful duet.

Yes, the music isn’t great. It’s like being stuck inside a long pop video of an artist you (possibly) hate.

You do feel, as with most musicals, that there is a coherent plot in there somewhere trying to get out but I couldn’t find it. I do like having to google the facts behind a film after having seen it. Just to clarify a few points you know but to have to find out the whole story, that's stretching it a touch and there does appear to have been a cracking story about Barnum but this isn't it.

Sadly it seems the world has learnt little from the success of La La Land and musicals have returned to square one. So I’m with the films own critic (Paul Sparks), who didn’t like Barnum’s show either.

They do say that musicals are escapism and yes, I wanted to escape.

Eddie The Eagle

Generally I like biopics because it is a great way of finding out about the life of someone you probably didn't know that much about. The problem is of course that filmmakers are prone to re-writing history or in fact making the whole thing up in the name of entertainment.

'Eddie The Eagle' is very loosely based on the true story of British Ski Jumper Eddie Edwards. Personally, I think the true story of Edwards' quest would have been even more interesting but that's just me I guess.

The film starts with Edwards’ (Taron Egerton) childhood where he is casting off his leg braces to try to pursue his dream of going to the Olympics in any sport that he can. His mother (Jo Hartley) is highly supportive of his ambition but his sceptical father Terry (Keith Allen) isn't. His father wants him to instead follow in the family plastering tradition. Which in real life he does, as a necessity to finance his Olympic dream, but not here.

After exhausting all possible summer sports Edwards turns to the winter events where he has more success and in a very short time becomes a world class downhill skier. Sadly he is cut from the British team by the stuffy Olympic selector Dustin Target (Tim McInnerny) just before the 1984 Olympics.

So he turned to ski jumping even though he didn't know much about it and headed off to a ski jumping hill in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. It is there that he meets one of the employees at the hill, Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman). Peary is a former ski jumper who apparently squandered his career and now drowns himself in alcohol. Which isn't true obviously.

Edwards attempts to learn to jump by trial and error while Peary repeatedly tells him to quit before he kills himself. Eventually he persuades Peary to coach him and then exploits the ancient qualification rules to qualify for the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary, something no one from Britain has done since the 1920's.

Although there has been a lot of license taken with the story it is still a pretty decent film and a total crowd pleaser. It helps that the filmmakers chose a decent actor in Taron Egerton, who clearly took the time to master the mannerisms of the real Edwards. 

With everything being played for laughs it takes some of the gloss off what a steely determined athlete Edwards really was but not all of it. His perseverance, dedication and hard work ethic still manages to shine through. For pedants like me a documentary about his life is being planned.

Edwards came last in Calgary but jumped a personal best of 71 metres, a mere 47 metres behind the Matti Nykanen who won gold. Of course Pierre de Coubertin, the foundering father of the modern Games said that the most important thing in the Olympic Games was ‘not to win but to take part’. Which, obviously, also isn’t true. Winning is everything.

Les Misérables

I go into this blind, although not blindfolded (there’s a thought). I have no idea about the story, as I haven’t seen either the musical, any of the previous film versions or read Victor Hugo's book. Naturally I knew there was going to be a lot of singing in it or rather, as is often the case, elongated talking. Something I’ve experienced before, the awful Sweeney Todd springs to mind, but that is often better than sitting through a singing frenzy, like say Evita. OMG I’ve done so many musicals, I sound like an expert.

Set in post first Revolution France, the film tells the story of prisoner 24601 Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) who stole a piece of bread and got sent to do hard labour for 19 years. Well, it turned into 19 years after several escape attempts. He is then released on parole which he breaks. He then steals from the only man who wants to help him, a priest. He gets caught but the priest forgives him, tells him to keep his ill gotten gains, as long as he makes something of his life. We fast-forward in time and I reach for Wikipedia, I’m confused already because Hugh Jackman doesn’t look like Hugh Jackman.

That ‘making something of his life’ translates to taking in Anne Hathaway, which is way beyond the call of duty even for an ex-convict. Give that man a royal pardon please but no, he is set to be constantly hounded for the rest of his life by a rather jobsworth of a police inspector called Javert (Russell Crowe).

Hathaway’s character Fantine gets sacked from her job for reasons I didn't fully understand, then sells not only the desirable bits of her body but also her hair and teeth to feed her child. The really odd thing is that someone wanted to buy these. Becoming a prostitute for money I can understand, that's a service that sells, but hair and teeth? Hmmm. Is this just an excuse to get a teeth pulling scene in, which is a good analogy... Meanwhile I’m still trying to work out why the supposedly reformed Valjean was hanging around the red light district in the first place.

Thankfully within minutes of being on screen Hathaway has died, again not quite sure of what, without us even finding out anything of note about her. With her dying on his watch, Valjean’s task to make something of his life is already looking a bit ropey. This is why I guess he decided to take care of Fantine’s daughter Cosette.

Then we’re into the lesser known second French Revolution. Which I’m sure there must have been more to than some students piling a load of furniture up in a side street whilst they were between lecturers. Amongst them, and clearly lost in France, is a little street urchin kid with a worryingly broad Cockney accent.

Mid-Revolution the rather feeble Marius (Eddie Redmayne) sees Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) and instantly falls in love. They don’t actually speak, words are not necessary. Unbelievably Marius hasn’t noticed the far more gorgeous female beside him, her friend and his, Éponine (Samantha Barks). Who would opt for the incredibly plain Cosette over her, not me. It can’t be because of her personality because; well they still haven’t spoken to each other. No wonder Éponine is so upset. Forget him love, he’s into precious, boring, rich girls who wouldn’t be seen dead on the frontline, you’re too good for him girl.

Valjean is initially worried Marius is going to take his adopted Daughter away from him, for about twenty seconds that is, then clearly he realises how expensive Daughters are and changes his mind. Suddenly he is so intent on getting her married off that he carries the now wounded Marius through the sewers to safety.

Only to come up against the mad singing policeman again. Finally, having been shown mercy himself several times, Javert has a moment of enlightenment and lets them go. Then promptly throws himself off a bridge, still singing. You couldn’t make it up. Well clearly someone did, didn’t they Mr Hugo but I guess if you’d précised your own book, which clocks in at 57 hour 51 minutes on audiobook (I checked), you’d have perhaps done it a bit differently.

Moments later, Valjean dies too, not that we even knew he was ill and that’s the problem really. We don’t know much at all. Les Mis isn’t into character development and therefore we know jack all about everyone.

It’s a shame because I got the impression there was a really good story in there somewhere fighting to get out but there was so much plot missing that it simply didn’t make any sense. Clearly they expected people to know the story and/or had seen the musical. It's has, however, made me want to see one of the film versions (with no singing obviously) to find out more.

Still, it wasn’t as bad as I expected and although lightweight, it was broadly entertaining. Cast wise, my expectations of Russell Crowe were that low, I actually thought he did alright. Hugh Jackman was ok too, while Anne Hathaway was, as you’d expect, distinctly average. Helena Bonham-Carter was as brilliantly maniacal as ever and along with Sacha Baron Cohen brightened up the whole affair with their comical supporting roles. Ah Corgette, how we laughed. 

Both have musical previous of course, in the aforementioned Sweeney Todd and are much better in this. Meanwhile Eddie Redmayne looked simply lost, Amanda Seyfried was, shall we say, very hard on the ears and Samantha Barks, well, I’ll have nothing said against her.Cue gratuitous photo.

Singing wise, the men sang low which worked, the women sang high, which generally didn't. The street urchin child showed them all how to do it, albeit in Cockney. There were also a few actors who had done the stage show, good on you Sammy, and you could tell.

Clearly Les Misérables is a film you’ll either love or hate. If you aren't a fan of musicals, skip it. It’s a total mystery to me as to why the score has been such a hit. If you are a fan of a decent plot, err, I would definitely skip it too.

Overall I feel rather proud that I got through it and if they were selling ‘I survived Les Misérables’ t-shirts outside, I would have bought one.