Changing the lyrics and singing ‘Shake your Prom-Prom’ > ‘Shake Your Bon-Bon’ by Ricky Martin. Changing the lyrics and singing ‘The Prom Song’ > ‘The Thong Song’ by Sisqo. I have spoken.
Barry Glickman (James Corden) and Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) are two Broadway mega-stars, falling out of favour because their big show just closed on opening night and the critics hate them. Their friends, Angie Dickinson (Nicole Kidman) and Trent Oliver (Andrew Rannells), come up with an idea to become social activists, because showing compassion for other people’s problems is a sure-fire way for people to start caring about them on Broadway again! Searching Twitter’s top mentions, they come across a story about a girl in Indiana who has been denied the privilege of attending her High School prom because she’s gay. The group take themselves to Indiana to save the day, but what they find is a bright young woman, Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman), and a problem they’re actually going to have to care about. The Prom is directed by Ryan Murphy, whom I know best for creating, and working on American Horror Story (and Glee, among other things), and I’ll just quickly say, how fast I realised that mood lighting in horror and musicals is so easily transferable; I could laugh out loud, but I think this revelation might save me a couple of scares in some horror movies to come.
Homosexual stories are the mainstream now, and I must admit, I can have a bit of a hard time relating to them because, I’ve always had gay friends, and The Prom is a good example of where it hasn’t been much of an issue – we had a high school formal the year I graduated around ten years ago, and we had lesbians that attended freely. From what I was aware, the people who loved them at home never quarrelled with who they were as well. The Prom made me think back on that time, and be proud of the people in my year level who were accommodating without it being an issue, but I guess it’s not like that everywhere. We also had a school-organised Debutant Ball, which was more regimented, and I can’t recall if there were problems around that or not. The point is, it’s a no-brainer that people of all walks of life should be able to attend their graduation and school dances freely. For all the singing and dancing in musicals, a good lot of them do tend to touch on serious issues – famously, Rent with aids, Hairspray with fat-shaming and racism, or even Hamilton with equality and independence. I like that; I like that a fun fabulous format can still be thematically serious.
The state of Indiana cops the brunt of this story for being particularly bigoted, and I wonder if the writers behind The Prom had an encounter in Indiana; methinks thou doth protest too much, otherwise – perhaps our writers grew up there and had some callous experiences first hand; that’s what I’m guessing. The Prom also boarders on being a satire of celebrities that stick their conceited nose into social activism for the prestige. ‘Imagine’ that. Casting the likes of Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and James Corden, perfectly plays off these talented young actors, and sort’ve reflects the story being told, of huge stars coming to the unknown little people of a small town. As ironically as it gets, I have recognised Andrew Rannells as ‘that guy’ before, but now I know, it’s Andrew Rannells, and he is fantastic, and he is from The Prom. Kelly Washington is playing a dangerous game, taking the role of this high-strung mother on the PTA, daring to say the things she says – even though it’s acting, I feel like, in Hollywood, you can get cancelled for less. But the entire cast is fantastic – I’m not always the biggest fan of Corden, and he might have the weakest time on screen here, but I believe Glickman and The Prom has helped me warm to him a little more. And who would’ve picked Keegan-Michael Key and Meryl Streep to be the most charming onscreen couple of the year. K-ute!
I wish I’d seen The Prom on stage first, just to know where to give props to the actual show and what ideas are purely for the movie. For example, I remember seeing Chicago on local stage the same year it came out in theatres; ignorant me thought the play was amazing and that there was no way that the movie could be any better, but anyone who’s seen Chicago knows that the movie takes the songs and turns them into, like, Roxy-Hart-fame-fantasies, and it blew my mind. In The Prom, I’d love to know if Glickman dancing with his younger-self at prom was a movie idea, or already part of the show – either way, it makes for a fantastic scene. Movies of musicals usually have the best benefit of expanding the locations in which song and dance numbers can take place; they’re able to cut back from one location to another with ease too, like a music video. Sometimes in a movie version, the production can lose its liveliness though, if it gets too big, or comes across as overly edited. Obviously, there’s an immediacy with live performance that can’t be replicated in a movie. I think The Prom does very well in finding the right balance in all cases – songs, in particular when Principal Hawkins (Keegan-Michael Key) is singing about going to the theatre, Dee Dee Allen is wooing her man in the Principal’s office, or Oliver is convincing the other kids to ‘love thy neighbour’, use the mediums’ full potential, and probably elevate what can be achieved on stage. I’m bully about The Prom; some shows you can tell suffer from being taken off the stage, but I think this musical movie is definitely worth seeing.
I see a problem with Netflix because I feel a movie like this would have been more epic in a theatre with surround sound. There’s still a difference, in anticipation, between making the effort to go out and take a chance on a movie that turns out to be a really great time at the cinema, and pressing play in your living room. There are some genres where I still crave the atmosphere of other people and a big screen – musicals, action and animation top that list. This review is probably the least I’ve ever talked about the actual movie in a review, but that’s okay; it’s all there in The Prom – it’s fun, it’s daft, it’s serious, and sometimes it’s so bad it’s delicious! See it for yourself and let it deliver with zazz.
4.0
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