The 2018 Broadway musical The Prom attracted a significant fan base during its run at the Longacre, including—apparently—Ryan Murphy, purveyor of numerous television offerings including Glee. Despite the checkered reception of the musical, which closed after a disappointing nine-month run, Murphy quickly determined to film it as part of his groundbreaking $300 million production deal with Netflix.
We now, to brighten up this pandemic season, have The Prom on film. Murphy has managed to capture the outright joy that he and the show’s Broadway fans embraced, magnify it several times over, and uncover the beating heart that was crusted—in the view of this playgoer—with coagulated cynicism at the Longacre. Having had little patience for the musical on stage, it is a happy and unexpected pleasure to say that this screen adaptation of The Prom is pure delight, with sequins.
The proceedings stick closely to the stage version, with composer Matthew Sklar, lyricist Chad Beguelin, bookwriters Bob Martin and Beguelin, and choreographer Casey Nicholaw repeating their assignments. This is an oft-told musical comedy yarn, the one about city folk who travel to bucolic climes where they resolve societal tensions while uncovering unsuspected truths about themselves. (See Bye, Bye Birdie, Plain and Fancy, Brigadoon, and even—in an unconventional manner—The Book of Mormon).
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The invaded territory in this case is the hinterlands of Indiana, home of shopping malls and the upscale eatery the New Yorkers repeatedly call “Apples and Bees.” The social issue is simplicity itself: a teenager wants to take her girlfriend to the prom. The invaders are a knowingly devised quartet of suddenly out-of-work Broadway actors in voracious search of a spotlight, even if it’s only at a redneck truck rally.
Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) carries her two Tony Awards around in her bag, lest they help her get better hotel accommodations. Barry Glickman (James Corden) would carry around his Tony Awards if he had ever won any. The two have just closed in a one-night flop that was presumably—with Corden as FDR-in-wheelchair and Streep as Eleanor—as bad as it sounds. Fleeing to the heartland in search of a cause to rehabilitate their reputations, they are joined by Trent Oliver (Andrew Rannells), a Juilliard graduate tending bar at Sardi’s, and Angie Dickinson (Nicole Kidman), who has just quit her long-time job as an under-appreciated understudy in Chicago.
Oil and water—or perhaps baguettes and Wonder Bread—don’t quite mix, although the hayseed bigots eventually accept Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman), her girlfriend Alyssa (Ariana DeBose), and those outrageous liberal heathens from Broadway. They even win over the biggest bigot of them all, Alyssa’s mother (Kerry Washington).
It is no surprise that Streep and Corden know how to milk the script for every last ounce of ham juice (if you know what I mean). Those of us who remember Streep from her early days never begrudged her being stolen away by Hollywood, which would be decidedly ungrateful given the excellence of her work. But she is at root a stage creature, and appears to be relishing every moment of her screen time as Broadway legend Dee Dee. As well as all that screen time she purloins from the others. Corden, too, has had great personal success with late-night television and coffee commercials. Nevertheless, he is one of the great stage clowns of his generation, and we remain eager to see him in the long-promised revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I, personally, would even settle for him as vacation replacement for Hugh Jackman in The Music Man. We got trouble, indeed.
Rannells and Kidman provide comic highlights, albeit in lesser doses. As in the stage version, the authors give their characters less to do, with one-show stopper each. (The bus-and-truck Fosse-themed “Zazz” for her; a shopping mall production number in which he wins over the students called “Love Thy Neighbor” for him.) Costarring and holding his own is Keegan-Michael Key, as the high school principal who finds his leading lady. Fine supporting contributions come from Pellman, DuBose, Washington, Kevin Chamberlin as the Broadway press agent, and Tracy Ullman as Corden’s mother.
Nicholaw—who directed the show on Broadway—leaves those duties to Murphy, who makes this a Hollywood high school musical with attitude. Nicholaw does, however, outdo himself with the dances. This is a world where everybody dances, naturally; but unlike in his numerous stage musicals, Nicholaw appears to have a budget for endless dancers. He makes the most of it, with every amplified step and detail standing out as is his custom. On the musical side, special note should be made of Pellman and DuBose’s delivery of Sklar and Beguelin’s “Dance with You.” Broadway does not give an award for best song of the season, but “Dance with You” would get my vote.
Adding several fillips of joy is the production design by Jamie Walker McCall. The opening New York section of the film brings us Broadway as we know it and wish it was. This is centered on the Shubert Theatre and Sardi’s across the way, accurate down to the wall design on the Shubert façade. Except that this rendition of 44th Street packs the entire district on one block; as the dancers frenetically spill into the street, we get a witty conglomeration of nine Broadway houses clumped together.
The proposed national tour of The Prom has been delayed due to the pandemic. Given the likely viewership of Murphy’s Netflix adaptation, one can expect boosted audience attendance when the tour hits the stage, plus a dynamic afterlife on stages across the nation.
Make sure to stay tuned after the final shot of the girls singing their love song at the prom, as special treats are sprinkled through the credits. As for me, I then went back to the beginning and started watching again.
The motion picture version of The Prom opens in theaters on December 4, 2020 and will be streamed beginning December 11. Information: netflix.com
