The Prom, out now in cinemas and on Netflix.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Corny, cheesy, schmaltzy, unsubtle, totally predictable… call it all the names you like but the bottom line is that The Prom works and is just the feelgood pick-me-up we need at this gloomy time.
The movie, with a glitzy cast headed by Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells, takes a moderately successful Broadway musical, circa 2018, which never made it across the Atlantic and shakes every last laugh out of it.
With Streep and Corden shamelessly and hilariously hamming it up, The Prom doesn’t miss a trick in its over-the-top way. The tear-ducts are being worked over whether it’s tears of joy or a good old cry at the inevitable moving-but-happy ending.
I was going to say the story is wildly improbable but as it has its origins in real life, possibly not so wild. The inspiration is a 2010 court case in Mississippi when a lesbian student was barred from bringing her girlfriend to the high school prom following Parent-Teacher Association pressure.
The ensuing brouhaha included some unexpected celebrity intervention, much publicity for the gay community and an honourable message about acceptance and inclusivity.
The Prom’s version starts on Broadway with two of its fading but self-obsessed stars, Dee Dee Allen (Streep) and Barry Glickman (Corden), so wrecked by an horrendous first-night review and immediate closure of Eleanor!, a musical about the Roosevelts, that they cross the road to drown their sorrows at what was meant to be a party at fabled showbiz watering hole Sardi’s.
Joining them there is Angel (Kidman), so fed up with being a chorus girl for 20 years in Chicago and never getting a chance to play the Roxie Hart role she craved that she walks out on the show.
Bartender and “resting” actor Trent (Rannells) tells Dee Dee and Barry they aren’t loved because they are too narcissistic and a plan is hatched to do something admirable and selfless to get some positive publicity.
By chance Angel finds on her iPhone a worthy cause in conservative Indiana. There’s a bus outside going that way and the quartet wind up 750 miles away in Edgewater where gay student Emma Nolan (newcomer Jo Ellen Pellman, excellent) is causing ripples ahead of her high school prom.
Jo Ellen Pellman and Ariana DeBose in The Prom
We had better leave the narrative there as to go further would spoil the twist and turns the story takes. Suffice to say, the pace never slackens under the drive of director Ryan Murphy and the songs, despite some clunky lines, are funny, plentiful and decent.
Composer Matthew Sklar and lyricist Chad Beguelin (who along with Bob Martin adapted the stage musical for the screenplay) have done well with the transition of their show from Broadway to Hollywood.
Moviegoers might be sceptical about whether Kidman, Corden and Streep are using their own voices but there’s no need. Streep had singing roles in Mamma Mia!, Into The Woods and had to sing badly in Florence Foster Jenkins which is much more difficult than it sounds. Corden has singing cred from Into The Woods and the much-maligned Cats (not to mention hosting the Tony Awards and Carpool Karaoke) while Kidman surprised us all in Moulin Rouge!
The tongue-in-cheek ‘It’s Not About Me’ gives full rein to their timing while ‘The Lady‘s Improving’ shows Streep’s comic range and vocal power.
Kidman’s song-and dance number ‘Zazz’, a variation on ‘All That Jazz’ from Chicago, the show she has just quit (but there’s a happy ending with that as well), comes in a compelling scene with Pellman which is one of the best moments. But Corden’s reunion with his mother (Tracey Ullman) is one scene too cringe-worthy and too far.
Diva Dee Dee has a surprise admirer in school principal Tom Hawkins (Keegan-Michael Key), who has one wonderful line about not all fans of Broadway shows being gay. Key can certainly sing as ‘We Look To You’ demonstrates.
The sweetest voice belongs to Pellman, the 25-year-old convincingly playing the teenage Emma. She is already being tipped as Hollywood’s Next Big Thing and if her interpretations of ‘Unruly Heart’ plus her ‘Time To Dance’ and ‘Dance With You’ duets with girlfriend Alyssa, the already-famous Ariana DeBose, are any guide, the confidence in her future is not misplaced.
Kerry Washington, as Alyssa’s mother and feisty PTA head, has an unsympathetic role but, wouldn’t you know it, she melts in the end.
The Prom, for all its faults, has its heart in the right place and there are enough magical moments, lively songs and wild set pieces to win over any audience. It’s very more-ish. I’ve already seen it twice, in cinema and at home on Netflix, and would not bet against a third.
Jeremy Chapman
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