The Prom

The Prom ⭐️⭐️

Director: Ryan Murphy. Cast: Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Kerry Washington

Where do I start? Tonight I wanted to see something completely silly and uplifting that would distract me from the gloomy news coming from America (I’m writing this on the day the Capitol Building in Washington was under siege) . How could I do wrong with a glitzy musical starring Meryl Streep (among the many others) who I could watch reading a directory?

Well, let me tell you, it did distract me from the news, but only in so far as I kept wondering “how could they have made something so crass, so predictable and make 2 hours feel like an eternity?

The prom feels like a bad extended episode of “Glee” (a series which at times I actually did enjoy) with a bigger budget and bigger stars. Not for anything director Ryan Murphy (not somebody known for his subtlety) was the “brain” behind that show.Yes, there’s a great energy in the film and some of the numbers are actually OK(ish), but essentially it’s a series of cliche about coming out, being gay, high school bulling and all the things which we’ve seen a million times before, done a lot better. In the end the film becomes exactly what it pretends to be criticising throughout. I thought it was excruciating.

James Corden has been slaughtered for his performance and for pretending to be a gay man… I didn’t think he was that bad, nor I see what the problem with playing a gay man would be. Isn’t he an actor after all? In fact, he’s the least of the problems with “The Prom”. It’s the terrible, unsubtle, hollow, preachy, hokey script which is embarrassing.

If if wasn’t for Meryl singing and dancing and looking splendid as ever at the age of 71, I would have turned it off after about 20 minutes.

On Netflix