The Greatest Showman Review: 5 Ups & 4 Downs
2. There's Not Much Character Development
Again, like most musicals character development does have to take something of a backseat to accommodate all those songs, but unfortunately many of the movie's characters don't really end up feeling like actual people, rather than props on which to hang the impressively elaborate set-pieces.
Though Barnum, his wife Charity (Michelle Williams) and Zac Efron's alcoholic playwright Phillip Carlyle are sufficiently fleshed-out, the "freaks" are weirdly malnourished in this department, with most of them not even being named on-screen beyond their stage monikers.
In addition, there are real problems with Ferguson's Jenny Lind character, whose personality seems to change on a dime in act three simply to service the plot, even though it doesn't really make a ton of sense.