The Greatest Showman

Kaitlyn Craig, Columnist and Human Interest Coordinator

Movies have the ability to reach people and teach lessons in a way that not all mediums can. Going to the movies is something that people do to spend time with friends, and to just entertain themselves. Sometimes when people go to the movies, they don’t research what they are going to see, they just go for the experience of the movies. This also means that they can reach a much bigger audience. Another thing that helps expand the audience is well thought out advertising and good publicity. Consciously or unconsciously, people pay attention to the commercials they see on tv and the ads they see as they are scrolling through Facebook. Something that helps these ads become something that people actually pay attention to rather than scroll past is big name actors. This is something that one of the biggest movies of the year has done really well. The Greatest Showman stars some very big named actors, such as Hugh Jackman, Zendaya, and Zac Efron. But they also have the musical theatre talent to backup their big names.

  The experience of going to see this movie was different than what I expected. With myself being a theatre nerd and just looking forward to seeing a beautiful story told in musical format, I expected the other people there to be there for the same reason. But this movie drew in all kinds of different people, who were there for all different kinds of reasons. Some came because they wanted to learn more about the life of PT Barnum, others wanted to see Hugh Jackman perform a musical, and most of them, especially the older teenage girls, were there to see Zac Efron. But nevertheless, everyone around me seemed to love the movie as much as I did.

  For those of you who don’t know, The Greatest Showman is the story of PT Barnum and how he basically created show business. This movie is very energetic, very emotional, and very well made. I absolutely loved every second of it. This movie taught one of the most needed lessons for our current time period. It taught us that you need to love yourself for you and accept who you are, and we need to accept others for their differences as well. And this message got to reach a huge audience because of the way it was told. I would recommend this movie to anyone who loves a good story. Though it isn’t a chick flick or anything, I cried multiple times because of the emotion and because of just how wonderful everything fit together, from the music, to the acting, to the physical storytelling. I would give this film a 5/5.