Watching The Prom felt like watching 2 painful hours of ‘The late night show with James Cordon’. It left me asking; were the actors ad-libbing the entire time? Who wrote the script? And more importantly, who was it written for? 3 year olds? Because what were Cordon and crew’s Barney gesticulations about.
For a “gay-themed movie”, Emma’s tired story felt like an afterthought to Cordon and crew’s overblown drama, and even the misconception about straight men and Broadway struck a louder chord than the young lady’s ‘trials of love’. It was basically a vibe-fest. Like one of these AY movies – packed with popular thespians and trendy themes that are left to float about. And in two hours of dull scenes and timbre-less songs, and Andrew Rannells trying and failing to stick the joke about his character going to Julliard, Meryl Streep’s singing was the only soother.
In fewer words, The Prom was a miss, but not for Ryan Murphy because unlike in AY movies where the stars go off their orbit (stars are distant planets, right?), and act like they were not given any direction at all, the stars in this movie shone just the right amount and in just the right dose – a testament to Ryan Murphy’s strict directing. It was instead a miss for Chad Beguelin and Bob Martin who were arrogant enough to think they could bring Broadway to screen with such lazy writing.
