BEFORE: I'm Amtrakking up to Massachusetts tonight, though I may not be able to post until Saturday, I never know how much computer time I can get at my parents' house. My mother was in the hospital about a month ago, then got released to a medical rehab facility for a week, but then after four or five days that facility was about to go back into lockdown because of a positive COVID test or something, so my father and sister pulled her out of there because that would mean two weeks away from her family. But she's vaccinated, there's no reason for her to be part of a quarantine, so she came home, against medical advice. This weekend is my first chance to visit since May, because I was working at the movie theater, up until last week. Labor Day, yeah, but forget that because SO many people travel then - so I got a break on the train fare by waiting another week to visit.
James Corden carries over from "Yesterday". This will probably be my one nod to school-based films for September, usually I can string together two or three films for back-to-school time, but this is the only one that fit into my chain this time. Yes, I know that proms take place in MAY, not September, but I'm still afraid this is the best I'll be able to do.
THE PLOT: A troupe of hilariously self-obsessed theater stars swarm into a small conservative town in support of a high school girl who wants to take her girlfriend to the prom.
AFTER: Agh, this is a tough one to rate, because I see that this film had such good intentions, it tried so hard to be LGBTQ positive, and stand up for gay rights and gay teen rights and inclusiveness where high school proms are concerned, but I'm just not sure that it GOT there in the right way. Do you know what I mean? This is a solid issue, and if there are still hotbeds of conservatism in Middle America, then this is an important issue as well, but it kind of needs to be handled in the right way if it's going to change minds and fight inequality and bigotry. Making this film was probably like walking into a minefield where the issue is concerned.
I'm not sure that the best way to tell the story of gay high-school students who want to attend prom together is to start with a bunch of Broadway stars looking for redemption, and something to do, after starring in a flop musical about Eleanor Roosevelt. Yes, I get it, a lot of male Broadway stars happen to be gay, that's a stereotype but it's probably also very true. There's a bit of a "Springtime for Hitler" feel about "Eleanor! The Musical", but that only points out that "The Producers" handled the story of a Broadway flop much, much better than this film does. Would it be THAT wrong if these actors with too much time on their hands wanted to stand up for this cause in Indiana because, you know, that's the right thing to do? It's not even that funny of a joke for them to want to do this for the WRONG reasons...
Meryl Streep plays a character who thinks showing her Tony Award - sorry TonyS - will get her a better room in a Midwestern motel. It's funny that her character is so self-serving and self-centered, because we want to believe that this is a goof, that the actress in real life is nothing like this. And then James Corden plays a gay actor who was terrible as FDR - but what's wrong with his voice here? Is he trying to TALK like a gay man? I thought that wasn't cool or funny or PC any more - yeah, it's neither cool nor funny nor PC here. Was he just trying to sound like an American, because the plot somehow demands that he was born in Ohio? I'm not sure - but either way, he should have just stuck to his normal voice, as long as we're talking about stereotypes, don't most men with British accents sound a little gay anyway? Or at least potentially gay? Sorry if that's not P.C.
The other two leads in the foursome of actors come off a little better - Nicole Kidman plays a stage actress who's been in the company of "Chicago" for decades, but never gets a chance to audition for the role of Roxie Hart, instead it always goes to Tina Louise or some other name actor. (Why pick on Tina Louise here? That doesn't seem fair...) Kidman (her character's name is Angie Dickinson, but nobody seems to think that's odd, did everybody forget there's an actress from the 1970's with that name?) gets to do a song that inspires the young Indiana lesbian to live her life with "Zazz" whatever that is, but it's basically a philosophy based on jazz hands and asking "What Would Bob Fosse Do?", or perhaps it's "What Would Someone Auditioning for Bob Fosse Do?", either one works. But at some point I couldn't tell if Ms. Dickinson was teaching her to dance or trying to seduce her. (Honestly, either one works...)
And Andrew Rannells plays the bartender/actor who championed the cause, and gets a great song and dance number in a shopping mall where he gets to call the bigoted Christian teens out for their hypocrisy, since there are plenty of messages and instructions in the Bible that these teens are blatantly ignoring, while also neglecting to follow the most important one of all, which is "Love thy Neighbor". This scene works very well, but there are plenty of other ones that just don't, like Streep's character trying to win over/seduce the high-school principal, who's already a fan and already on her side, so the whole routine is rather pointless.
The big problem here is that there's one lesbian girl speaking out for her right to go to prom, and her girlfriend is still closeted AND the daughter of the head of the P.T.A., who's the most close-minded and homophobic of all. Nothing's going to change in this town until the other girl comes out, or at least has a conversation with her mother, and while the movie eventually gets there, it just takes too damn long to do it. Everybody should be able to see the quickest answer to the problem, they just...don't for some reason, because then I guess the film would only be 30 minutes long.
But why, WHY do the bigoted teens get so much screen time? The whole argument is that they're on the wrong side of history, so why give them names and make their opinions important in the first place, isn't that just carrying the bigotry forward? Yes, eventually there is a transformation, but I'm not sure these two couples deserve it. I know this comes from Ryan Murphy, who created "Glee", among other shows, and I expected from him a much better handling of this topic.
Also starring Meryl Streep (last seen in "Everything Is Copy"), Nicole Kidman (last seen in "Genius"), Andrew Rannells (last seen in "Home Again"), Keegan-Michael Key (last heard in "The Lion King" (2019)), Jo Ellen Pellman, Ariana DeBose, Kerry Washington (last seen in "Lakeview Terrace"), Tracey Ullman (last heard in "Onward"), Kevin Chamberlin (last heard in "The Emoji Movie"), Mary Kay Place (last seen in "City of Ember"), Logan Riley Hassel, Sofia Deler, Nico Greetham, Nathaniel J. Potvin, Sam Pillow, Frank DiLella, Spencer Tomich, with archive footage of Dermot Mulroney (last seen in "The Mountain Between Us"), Julia Roberts (last seen in "Isn't It Romantic").
RATING: 4 out of 10 prom superlatives (which I believe is not a prom thing, it's a yearbook thing)
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