"The Greatest Showman": Analysis of The Plot, Music and Performance

 Watch out! Wild animals are there (lions, tigers, and elephant). Don’t miss the show of the ringmaster and the unlikely gang of misfits and here it is … the circus. “The Greatest Showman” a film produced in 2017 and directed by Michael Gracey. By the dreams of P. T. Barnum which came true, The Greatest Showman is musical and drama movie that started by nothing to build a dream that became something worldwide. Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson were performing the main roles in the movie.

The Greatest Showman movie is a biography about Phineas T. Barnum's life, a promoter, owner of Barnum’s museum, circus, and entertainment producer. A young boy, “Finn' (Ellis Rubin), a son of a poor tailor, meets his true love Charity (Skylar Dunn), a daughter of a well-heeled customer that his father works for. By his way he makes her laugh and receives a slap from her father, but the love between them lasted with their teenage years, she goes to a boarding school and he's a poor little boy and an orphan in the streets. Years later, Finn and Charity (Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams) became older, get married and have two girls. He tries managing to take a loan to open up a museum of oddities, and it starts to fail, then he got an idea by a little person to call strange looking people including a lady with beard Letty Lutz (Keala Settle), Tom Thumb (Sean Humphrey), and two black brother-and-sister trapeze artists W.D. Wheeler (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Anne Wheeler (Zendaya) -- to create a show focused around those strange looking people. With some ornamentation by dresses and makeup and opened a circus. Even though the show is critically panned, others love it. He became very rich, but Barnum can't stop looking forward.

The film started with a huge and great performance in the circus. The lights were dark colors and only rays are passing through them to give us the shadow of “Barnum” to show us the mysterious character and what’s going to happen. He used his body to open the lights. The way they started the film was imaginable. When the show began, the lights changed from dark to really light, bright, and very colorful and it was focused on the characters of the performance and this shows their importance and “Barnum” kept repeating “This is where you wanna be” this also foreshadows his deep desire for achieving his dream. The film shifts to when “Barnum” is a young boy and standing in front of the costume he’s dreaming of and what he really wants to be, and we can see his shadow in the glass. Lights were shifting all over the movie, for example; in the scene when he used the candles to make a shadow for the animals on the wall, the lights were dull, dark and nothing was lit except the animal’s shadow and this technique was used to foreshadow his dream for opening his circus and the lights used to be dark because he’s really poor and can’t achieve his dreams but the lights were shifting with every step he’s taking towards his dream and his love for “Charity”. The song “A million dreams” is showing us all his dreams for his love and opening the circus. In this song, they used a camera technique which is a bird's eye view when the fabrics are falling from the stairs and this also symbolizing the loss of his first dream which is his love is leaving. Dark colors are also used when they used to write messages which show their sadness and pain of being a part of each other. In the scene when they were in the train station everything around them was dull, gloomy, and dark and the two characters were lit (warm colors); this foreshadows that they are suffering from poverty but the warm colors show how their love is warming their bodies and they are facing what stands in front of them together by their love.

Everything started to shift when “Barnum” started to achieve his dreams, the lights began to be very bright and lit to show his success and especially when he succeeded in his first performance in the circus and everyone was happy, clapping and astonished of what they were watching. A slow-motion technique is used in the same scene (first performance of the circus) and this was from Barnum’s eyes as he couldn’t realize that he succeeded and accomplished his dream and everyone around him was astonished by his success. In the scene when the oddities sang “This is me” at first they were inside and the lights were really dark and then they went out in front of everyone the lights became more light and this shows that when they showed themselves to people everyone was surprised of them but this is them, and they don’t fear of showing up in front of people. The lights were focused on them in particular as they also used a slow-motion technique in the circus scene to show their importance and the song was talking mainly on them. A very symbolic scene was when “Zendaya” and “Zac Efron” were in the hospital and they were holding each other’s hand and the camera technique here is an extreme close up and the light was very bright and this shows hope and foreshadows for what is going to happen.

Moreover, the music is in many ways extraordinary than the movie itself. The music is very helpful with the movie events and each song is representing a specific thing. The songs are homogenous with each character and the atmosphere. As in the beginning of the movie with the song “The Greatest Showman” the music is spiritual, and homogenous with the performance and the atmosphere. On the other hand, the song “Never Enough” the music is sorrowful and touching your heart and this is built upon the movie events. There is another song called “From Now On” this song gives hope, as it also encourages the characters. The song is very optimistic, and it helps the characters to do a great performance. One more song was “This is me” this song is giving power to the characters, and the audience as well, it is inspirational, and it gives you positive energy for life. A vital song is called “Re-write the stars” it’s one of the most amazing songs in this movie. It’s full of emotions, feelings, love, passion, and sensations. The song is mainly addressing their hearts with some romance, sadness, and sorrow as well as that you can feel that the words of the song are getting out from deep of their hearts.

To conclude, “The Greatest Showman” is a musical and drama movie with amazing graphics, visuals, performances, and marvelous music. The movie is about a poor guy who is achieving his dreams after suffering from all the circumstances. The whole movie is shifting from dark to light and from sadness to happiness but the only thing that helps the characters and giving them a push forward is love and hope. The movie is astonishing and I highly recommend this movie to everyone as it really makes you feel optimistic and gives you hope. A circus is a place where you can feel that you can achieve anything you want and anything is possible, that you can conquer the world, it only depends on how far your dreams go.