Director: Michael Gracey
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya
Review by Nursuhaida Binti Rohaizam, a UiTM Student
Review:
The movie is about PT Barnum, the protagonist who is played by Hugh Jackman struggles as someone who is a nobody to the famous show business owner. The genres of this film are musical, comedy, romance, and thriller. It started when young Barnum who loves joy and likes to bring smiles to people that he loves fell in love with the daughter of his father’s employer. The different status made it hard for him to pursue his love for her. He did not have anything and even lost his dad sometime before the girl that he loved left for boarding school. The protagonist did everything he did to survive and once he’s grown up he came back to the girl’s house to marry her. They have two beautiful daughters and live a happy life despite the financial issues.
When he lost his job, he had this idea to start a business full of unique and interesting people inspired by his daughters’ imagination. He started recruiting the people that best fit the criteria and the show received very good feedback from the audience. Except one of the writers did not like the show and called it a circus which later on became the name of the business, Barnum Circus. The circus continues to receive good feedback to the point where Barnum can buy a big house for his family. He also found a partner for the business which is Philip Carlyle played by Zac Efron who later on fell in love with one of the circus’s members, Anne Wheeler who was played by Zendaya.
The movie starts have the conflict when Barnum meets a singer, Jenny Lind, and starts to crave popularity. Once he saw what Lind is capable of he started to abandon his family and the circus to have a tour with her. She fell in love with Barnum but Barnum rejected her because he already had a wife. The show ends and so does their partnership. Barnum gets back to his family and circus just to find out that his circus is burning. Other than the circus getting burned, a photo of Lind kissing him goodbye got on the first page of the newspaper and Barnum quickly ran off to see his wife. His wife knows he did not cheat on her but she said that the man only loves himself and popularity rather than his family. After that, Barnum’s wife and his daughters all left for the wife’s parents home. As Barnum is about to give up on everything, his circus crew comes to him and tells him that they are family. He finally sees that this is what is important. He apologized to his crew, and his wife and decided to start a new circus using a tent this time. He asked his partner to be in charge as he would focus on his family more later on. This movie is very fun to watch and has a lot of moral values that can be learned. One of them is to appreciate the things that you have before they are gone, just like Barnum with his family and the circus. Other than that, the music and songs in this movie are amazing, and the voices of the characters were really good and even angelic. Some of the songs even managed to put me into tears because of how emotional and powerful the characters deliver. One of the quotes in this movie that I like is at the end screen which is ‘the noblest act is that of making others happy’. I recommend this movie to everyone especially those who love musicals and drama.
