Mark Reviews Movies: THE PROM

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 3, 2020

Musicals don't just belong on the stage, of course, but Ryan Murphy's movie The Prom doesn't make a good case that this show needed the cinematic treatment. The story is basically a big inside joke about the egotism of Broadway stars, as well as the misguided thinking that celebrities or a big show could change the world in any meaningful way. Sure, Chad Beguelin and Bob Martin's script (apparently copied more or less verbatim by or from the writers for this adaptation) doesn't stay true to its broadly satirical premise, but that's to be expected.

After all, this is a big show about egotistical Broadway stars trying to change the world in a meaningful way, but such illogical developments and hypocrisies might have gone over a lot better on the stage. The stage lights and choreography and impressive set pieces can be a good distraction.

There are no such distractions here, save for the ones that Murphy brings to this adaptation, by trying to copy the concept and spirit of live theater without really understanding why that often doesn't work. During the big song-and-dance numbers, his camera moves, for sure, up and down and across every axis, as the performers stare blankly straight ahead at an invisible audience. It's a bit off-putting, as if everyone on screen is performing for somebody—but definitely not us.

In a way, they aren't. They're performing for people who already know this show, who will catch all of the names of shows and Broadway personalities that Beguelin and Martin's script drops, and who believe in the notion that a song-and-dance number can change the world.

If the show is an inside joke, the movie adaptation has missed the punch line. We're not supposed to take this seriously, but Murphy, who treats every moment of this story with such artificial spectacle (The actors drown in neon lighting whenever there's a musical number) or misplaced sincerity, does.

The story opens with a teenage girl named Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman, a charming natural) being denied a chance to attend her high school prom in a small Indiana town, because she's planning to bring her girlfriend. Cut suddenly and with complete tonal whiplash to Broadway, where Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) and Barry Glickman (James Corden) watch the thrill of opening night—for a musical about Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt—turn to misery when the reviews run.

They need a publicity win, and while commiserating at a bar, eternal chorus member Angie (Nicole Kidman) finds a potential PR victory online with Emma's story. The three and Trent (Andrew Rannells), a theater actor mostly known for a sitcom, decide to head to Indiana and make such a scene that the PTA will have to let Emma attend prom.

From the script, it's easy to tell that Dee Dee and Barry are the butt of the joke here (Angie and Trent serve as backup, until each of them has a big number of his and her own). They're self-centered and obnoxious, only in this mission for praise and to curry favor with award-voting bodies. The joke is amusing at first (although it seems a bit lazy that the filmmakers wouldn't adapt this material, which is gently mocking its own medium, to fit the medium in which they're working), but we quickly realize that the movie's own perspective is as restricted and ungenerous as its targeted-for-satire protagonists.

Why does this story belong to Dee Dee, who strikes up a relationship with fan/principal Mr. Hawkins (Keegan-Michael Key), and Barry, who still resents his parents for not accepting that he's gay? Why do Angie, showing off how to gain confidence by dancing in the Bob Fosse way, and Trent, explaining to a mall of teenagers the hypocrisies of modern religion in which rules of the Bible should be followed, get to take up so much of the spotlight?

The joke and eventual point of realization here is that these performers don't genuinely care about Emma, so why doesn't the story itself care about her? She gets a couple of songs, a duet with her girlfriend (played by Ariana DeBose) and a ballad (that, like all of the songs here, crescendos to an attempted showstopper). Because of the lack of attention paid to the character, though, the more sincere tone the story takes as Emma's dreams fall apart simply doesn't work.

The Prom, in other words, is a messy mixture of good intentions and erroneous focus. As for the actual presentation of the show as a movie, Murphy can't distract us from the story's missteps and often steps all over himself trying to make everything as big a spectacle as possible.

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