Netflix and Ryan Murphy’s exuberant new movie adaptation of the 2016 Broadway hit The Prom, about a troupe of down-on-their-luck Broadway babies turned social justice warriors swooping into rural Indiana to save a high school prom from cancellation, is a broad, tongue-firmly-in-cheek confection both too Glee by half and surprisingly genuine in sentiment. It’s also pure entertainment.
Murphy, the television maverick behind both Glee and American Horror Story, has here mounted such a splashy, silly-sweet spectacle that you’ll be tempted to overlook the picture’s minor issues, which include a laughably cardboard villain, a huge dollop of admittedly self-aware PC preachiness and TV-friendly clique of high school cool kids, who, by the end, shift their prejudices on a shiny dime for the sake of a terrific production number. But with this much charisma in every frame, who really cares?
Picture begins opening night of a splashy, doomed Broadway extravaganza which closes immediately on a scathing NYT notice. Eleanor! The Eleanor Roosevelt Musical, starring double Tony-winner Dede Allen (Meryl Streep) as the famed first lady and flamboyant Barry (James Corden) as the wheelchair-bound prez, is a flop. Nursing their wounds after a botched Sardi’s celebration, Dede and Barry enlist help of two friends who also can’t catch a break – eternal chorus girl Angie (a sly Nicole Kidman), stuck for decades in the Fosse lineup only to see veteran TV-star Tina Louise (!) handed Chicago’s Roxie, and name-dropping Juilliard alum turned bartender Trent (Andrew Rannells), about to hit the road in a fourth rate Godspell tour.
Comically self-involved narcissists Dede and Barry chase good publicity (i.e., a social cause to triumph, but only one that’s convenient) to change the narrative of their high-profile folly, and redemption comes via Twitter through one Emma Nolan (appealing newcomer Jo Ellen Pellman), a high school senior in fictitious Edgewater, Indiana, whose fight to attend prom with her girlfriend has gotten the whole affair cancelled by the arch-conservative PTA president, played with cartoon villainy by Kerry Washington. She also happens to be the mother of Emma’s closeted paramour, Alyssa (Ariana DeBose).
Dede, Barry, Angie and Trent hightail it on the tour bus to Indiana determined to teach its local yokel, anti-P.C. small towners a big liberal lesson about inclusion and generate some good press in the process, and the picture mercilessly slings Hoosier barbs at the Mike Pence milieu and land of restrictive Religious Freedom and Restoration Act of 2015.
Yet Emma’s newfound allies only half-care about her cause, and the movie has a ball with the quartet’s shameless ego stroking as self-described “liberals from New York” announcing their arrival in cravenly self-aggrandizing ways, as when Dede, unrecognized by the local hotel clerk, promptly drags out both Tonys in the hopes of a suite upgrade. Streep, in latter day Death Becomes Her mode, ostentatiously vamps (often in a robust singing voice that seems to upgrade with each movie musical) with great wit to convey Dede’s vainglorious need for attention, which she receives from high school principal Tom Hawkins (terrific Keegan-Michael Key). Tom, it turns out, is also Dede’s biggest fan, has seen everything she’s done on annual trips to Broadway in an effort to be transported from his self-described humdrum life. Did I mention that he is also straight, handsome, liberal, funny, young, loves theater and knows every beat of Dede’s award-winning oeuvre? Okay, sure, why not?
Adapted for Murphy by its original production team of Chad Begueliin, Matthew Sklar and Bob Martin, The Prom is smart about showbiz insiders on the top and bottom, and often tender in its look at, as Emma describes in Just Breathe, why it doesn’t pay to be gay in Indiana and experience bullying and alienation. Other memorable tunes include Dede’s hilariously disingenuous It’s Not About Me; a wish for an expression of young love in Dance with You; Kidman’s sleek, ace Fosse-inspired Zazz; and the rousing climactic anthem Tonight Belongs to You.
What we might not expect of The Prom is that courtesy of Streep and Corden the movie calms down in its final act to deliver a few genuinely heartfelt moments, stripping the duo’s comedic armor directly to the source of their pathos—Dede’s loneliness and failed marriage to a now-famous TV host and Barry’s tormented coming out to unaccepting parents. No matter how you feel about this film, such scenes are undeniably well-wrought, and Corden, especially, pierces your heart.
It may not a great picture, but it IS a good one, faring better in its backstage satire than its sweet but obvious plea for LGBTQ+ equality and desire to broadly address the culture wars which tend to feel lyrically on-the-nose and preachy (though Rannells acquits himself admirably in Love Thy Neighbor). But then again, when was a star-studded musical ever subtle anyway?
There’s something unintentionally poignant about The Prom given the currently darkened state of the American theater scene, and it is bittersweet to see the opener’s buzzy, glittery Great White Way and its misplaced artists turning their talents elsewhere. Satire here, but likely too true this year.
The Prom gets by on goodwill, a good heart and a game cast. And those go a long way. Cynics have dismissed the film as gauche, obvious, whatever – yet there is no way to contest the inspiration in the picture’s music and its genuine elation in the final coda. If you choose to, it’s on you. The rest of us will enjoy polished star vehicle with just enough zazz to carry the day.
The Prom is currently available on Netflix.
3 stars.
