Peter Viney's Blog

The Prom
Netflix
2020

Directed by Ryan Murphy
Screenplay by Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin
Musical book by Matthew Sklar, Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin
Based on a concept by Jack Viertl
Music by David Klotz and Matthew Sklar
Cinematography by Matthew Libatique

CAST:
Meryl Streep- Dee Dee Allen
James Corden – Barry Glickman
Nicole Kidman – Angie Dickinson
Andrew Rannels- Trent Oliver
Keegan-Michael Kay- Principal Tom Hawkins
Jo Ellen Perlman – Emma Nolan
Ariane DeBose – Alyssa Greene
Kerry Washington – Mrs Greene, head of PTA
Tracy Ullman – Vera

(plus a cast of hundreds!)

Meryl Streep, James Corden and Nicole Kidman front the cast list. Netflix? They have definitely arrived.

It’s a film version of a 2018 Broadway musical, which in turn was based on actual events in Fulton, Mississippi in 2010. Constance McMillen, a Lesbian girl wanted to don a tuxedo and attend the School Prom with her girlfriend. She was banned. She challenged the decision and the school cancelled the prom. It caused an outcry:

WIKIPEDIA: McMillen and the American Civil Liberties Union sued her school district, and a federal court found the Itawamba School District guilty of violating  First Ameddment Rights. However, the judge did not force the school district to reinstate the prom. Furthermore, McMillen was in fact then sent to a fake prom attended by only seven students, two of whom had learning disabilities. The fake prom was held at a country club while the “real” prom, organized by parents, was held at a secret location.

Celebrities rallied to her support … a celebrity chef, an ex-boy band singer and the rock band Green Day.

It was turned into a Broadway play which ran for over 300 performances in New York. The location was shifted to Indiana … no doubt the producers balked at a very large cast all trying to do Mississippi accents. The celebrities became Broadway musical actors. DeeDee Allan has won two Tony Awards (Meryl Streep) and is in a production of Eleanor which is based on the life of Eleanor Roosevelt. Her co-star Barry (James Cordern) plays Franklin D. Roosevelt in a wheelchair … always a problem in an all singing, all-dancing musical. The movie opens with them celebrating … just before the reviews come in.

The musical is viciously savaged by the critics who call both ‘narcissistic.’ While commiserating over a drink they meet the barman who turns out to be an ex-sitcom star, Trent Oliver (Andrew Rannels) … though he’d been in five musicals with Dee Dee, she doesn’t remember him. As he keeps telling everyone, he went to Julliard. They then meet Angie Dickinson, a chorus line hoofer (Nicole Kidman) who is in perpetual hope of the star falling sick so she can take her place … she is third understudy.

The four are washed up and decide to get back in the news by finding a cause célèbre … and hit upon the case of Emma (Jo Ellen Perlman) a Lesbian student who can’t go to the prom. They rush off to Indiana to intervene. Trouble is, Emma’s girlfriend, Alyssa (Ariane DeBose), hasn’t come out yet, and her mom is the homophobic head of the PTA (Kerry Washington). Add a sympathetic school principal, Tom Hawkins (Keegan-Michael Fay) who is Dee Dee’s biggest fan and devotes his vacations to Broadway musicals.

That’s it for plot. No spoilers.

I found some things odd. The world of musicals is a parallel theatrical world with its own stars … you have to be able to sing, dance and act all at the same time, and be superb at all three. I’d avoided musicals mostly (except for West Side Story) but then we started going to Chichester Festival Theatre and they do one or two major ones every year. Yes, except for perhaps one famous actor per production, the casts are not the same people as standard theatre. I’m lost in admiration at their skills. Here we have three major actors joining in the singing and dancing. Meryl Streep has previous with Mamma Mia and stunned ABBA’s Benny Anderson by recording The Winner Takes It All in one take. James Corden has duetted cheerfully with the likes of Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder in Carpool Karaoke so can certainly hold a note. Nicole Kidman sang in Moulin Rouge. You’d have to say both women are experienced in film musicals, and James Corden is simply one of the best comic actors I’ve seen on stage … One Man Two Guv’nors. Then they all have to dance.

Andrew Rannals is a major musical star and he plays Trent Oliver, and he gets probably the most impressive major song and dance number, Love Thy Neighbour … his credits include (Tony nominated for best leading actor), Falsettos (also nominated), Hairspray, Hamilton, Jersey Boys, The Boys In The Band.

Jo Ellen Perman playing Emma is the newcomer, though all the way through we kept saying ‘What have we seen her in?’

There has been a degree of stick for James Corden, playing such a stereotypical gay musical actor … there are several lines on musicals and gays, such as Dee Dee can’t believe that Tom Hawkins is straight, as he likes musicals. Is it a Chorus Line in joke? Broadway (and West End) musicals depend on Joe and Jenny Average on their bi-annual visit to the Big City to sell their hugely expensive tickets. Corden is funny and can switch to sympathetic to exuberant (choosing a prom frock for Emma) to poignant (his mom threw out him at sixteen for being gay).

The Spool: at points, he descends into a grotesque collection of stereotypes about lisping effeminate gay men, with a questionable accent that doesn’t hold for more than two minutes at a time. It makes you wonder why he couldn’t just be a Brit who moved over to the States. 

The man is a comic actor of the highest order. He didn’t write the part, and it IS stereotypical. Complaining about straight men playing gays is somewhat rich after a century of closeted gay actors playing straight roles, nymphomaniacs playing nuns, nice people playing villains, villainous people playing nice guys. Actors should be able to swap roles. Corden is based in Hollywood. I thought his accent was OK, but he nearly slipped on a ‘Mom’ sounding more like ‘Mum’. He is such a music and movie fan that I’m sure it was worth doing for him just to play-fight Meryl Streep on a bed.

Nicole Kidman convinces as the wanna be star from the chorus line who befriends and advises Emma.

All six main actors … the four celebs, Tom Hawkins and Emma … turn in first class performances.

Overall though, the story is a combination of sledgehammer PC and trite. For the tearful happy ending we had predicted costume … ‘I bet Alyssa’s mum turns up at the Prom in a rainbow dress’ … and she does.

Some parts are very funny … such as Dee Dee and pals being booked to sing at an “arena” which turns out to be a Monster Truck arena.

Some of the dance numbers, invariably the high point of musicals, are spectacular. My main negative point is any decent musical has to leave you with a minimum of two songs that are total ear-worms. This doesn’t have any … a lot are narrative sung to music. In spite of 15 seconds of break dancing in the mall dance, and a dance right before the credits, much of the musical style is back to Broadway Generic 1940-2010.

A musical with weak tunes, then. Too obviously trite. Too much preaching to the choir. There are worse ways to spend a couple of hours, but as musicals go we found it too shallow in a genre that shines when it’s being shallow.