The Prom Lacks in Promised “Zazz” by Erin Stoeckig

"Celebrities have the same power as the United States President. The power to influence the American public," jokes James Corden’s Barry Glickman in the Broadway-musical turned-Netflix-movie The Prom. A sentiment becoming more true each day through the growing presence of social media, The Prom sets up to take aim at the modern era’s most prevalent issues, from bigotry to identity and everything in between -- in musical form! But with so many saltient themes and so many stars to stud its cast, The Prom struggles to give ample time to any of them, alternating between tones and storylines without allowing any to “Just Breathe”, as much as its poppy lyrics would suggest otherwise. 

The musical begins by introducing Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Andrew Rannells as four Broadway stars down on their luck turning to activism to reaffirm their celebrity status. At the outset, each is characterized by slightly varied forms of two-dimensional narcissism ripe for redemption. And, all four exuberantly pull this off with all the prerequisite humor and glamor. Each also brings equal skill and earnestness to their individual moments of intense character depth; Meryl Streep’s sorrow over her painful divorce is worthy of the Oscar-winner, but only serves to enhance the tonal dissonance of the film when her character leaps back into its cookie-cutter shape a scene later. 

Just in the way the show’s celebrities intend to steal focus from a worthy cause, the real-life stars often derail The Prom’s central story. Ariana DeBose, a Broadway veteran herself, impresses and intrigues in the tragically underutilized role of Alyssa Greene, and Jo Ellen Pellman as Emma Nolan, though stagnant in expression, plays well off her many co-stars. Though their relationship, the linchpin of the plot, often takes a backseat to celebrity shenanigans, leaving it feeling as underdeveloped as many of the minor characters’ storylines. Even The Prom’s major themes fall victim to this as Edgewater, Indiana’s homophobia is solved in the four minutes it takes Andrew Rannells to sing it away. 

Oscillating between silly and solemn, the film struggles to even fully embrace its classification as a musical. It’s inherently harder to suspend disbelief in film than in live-theatre settings, and The Prom only makes its spontaneous singing and dancing harder to buy into by grounding its musical numbers in reality. Cutting to reaction shots and choosing familiar-looking malls, schools, and homes for elaborate dance numbers instead of something with a little more whimsy makes characters’ frequent remarks at the strangeness of these situations uncomfortably biting. With tasteful color and sparkle, only the lighting and Lou Eyrich’s lavish costume design successfully straddle the line between Broadway fantasy and gritty reality. 

The Prom suffers from the transition from stage to screen, but certainly not enough to make it unbearable. Its fast pace, peppy songs, and Broadway references (though they could alienate some audiences -- especially those in the often-derided Midwest) bring a semblance of the charm of theatre back to “Unruly Hearts” across the country. And that feeling, in any form, has been sorely missed.