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Can one film make up for a yr with out musical theater, with out jazz arms? Ryan Murphy’s “The Promenade” tries its damnedest to, however regardless of a promising opening and a spiritedness that makes “Glee” look downright downtrodden by comparability, it’s not fairly the showstopper we’ve been pining for.
With neon lights, glowing fits and an all-star solid — Meryl! Nicole! Corden! — “The Promenade” definitely tries valiantly to take the glittering, giddy thrill of reside musicals and stuff it into one steroidal overdose. Which may be simply what some are craving; an excessive amount of Broadway razzle-dazzle isn’t precisely an issue proper now, with theaters closed till no less than summer season. “The Promenade” begins streaming Friday on Netflix.
The stage present of “The Promenade” — with a guide by Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin, who additionally wrote the songs with Matthew Sklar, the stage present of “The Promenade” was a reasonably ingenious mixture of earnest musical comedy and self-parody. Murphy, working from a script by Martin and Beguilin, has energetically carried over that tone, sending up Broadway simply as its celebrating it.
The opening is a barnburner. Dee Dee Allen (Streep) and Barry Clickman (Corden) are celebrating after the opening of their massive new Broadway present, “Eleanor!,” a misguided Eleanor Roosevelt musical, when the critiques begin rolling in. The social gathering turns instantly to a wake, and Dee Dee and Barry start drowning their sorrows with a pair of performers additionally on the outs (Nicole Kidman, Andrew Rannells). Fearing their careers slipping away, they resolve to show issues round with a PR-friendly trigger to rally round. “A bit of injustice we are able to drive to,” Dee Dee says, slurring over a martini.
It’s traces like that that make “The Promenade,” for a time, a delight. It really works greatest when its skewering the Broadway bubble however on much less sure footing as soon as it leaves the Nice White Approach behind. The foursome finds their trigger celebre trending on Twitter: A homosexual teenager named Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman, a spotlight and presumably the film’s solely convincing particular person) has been barred from bringing her girlfriend, Alyssa (Ariana DeBose), to her promenade in Edgewater, Indiana. To the heartland they go, with intentions each altruistic and hole, and Drama Desk statuettes packed of their designer baggage.
In Indiana, “The Promenade” begins to extra sincerely reckon with inclusion and LGBTQ rights, and occasional song-and-dance routines to go together with it. The movie admirably offers every foremost character some consideration, together with scenes with the varsity’s principal (Keegan-Michael Key, charming, primarily paired with Dee Dee) and Alyssa’s conservative mom (Kerry Washington), the vocal chief of the ban. However that additionally comes on the expense of the film’s preliminary headlong momentum and its operating time, stretching out what may need been a extra repeatedly humorous film till it begins to sag from the sort of self-congratulatory shows it initially satirizes.
None of that is so dangerous; the movie exudes the nice and cozy spirit of acceptance, and cinematographer Matthew Libatique (“A Star Is Born,” “Requiem for a Dream”) begins to wash the movie in a softer glow. But it surely’s additionally a fragile juggling act of comedian caricature and honest sentiment, and Murphy can’t fairly pull it off. Some have made sturdy circumstances that the efficiency by Corden as a homosexual stereotype, specifically, is off-key. Others are extra profitable. Cease me in case you’ve heard this earlier than, however Meryl Streep is terrific. Greater than anybody, she appears to relish parading by the gulf between Broadway and Center America, proudly introducing herself as a “gay-positive icon” and making an attempt to land a non-existent lodge suite by presenting her awards on the entrance desk.
“The Promenade” works arduous to be a great time, and I hope it’s for a lot of who may use one. As an encore, I can solely counsel one other inclusive, liberal-minded social gathering film from this yr that extra instantly captured the enjoyment of being in a theater: “David Byrne’s American Utopia.”
“The Promenade,” a Netflix launch, is rated PG-13 by the Movement Image Affiliation of America for thematic parts, some suggestive/sexual references and language. Operating time: 131 minutes. Two and a half stars out of 4.
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Comply with AP Movie Author Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
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