I'm glad that this was filmed. More Broadway musicals and other theatrical productions should receive this treatment. As a "movie," the camerawork, editing, and mixing are serviceable--not as good as Hamilton, but not as bad as many filmed plays--but as a musical, I don't think this merits the exorbitant score (8.7 stars) it currently has on IMDb.
As an ensemble piece it is indeed very impressive. Getting so many actors to play so many characters across multiple locales in quickly interspersed snippets of overlapping time without befuddling the cast or the audience--well, that must have required a lot of rehearsal. Nevertheless, the choreography seems a bit stiff and amateurish, the script is riddled with cliches, and the songs... well, they simply don't sing. Jenn Colella's solo as Beverley Bass, the first female airline captain, is a showstopper, but most of the songs barely hit the toetapper mark for me. Even though I liked Colella's song and her glorious pipes, I can't remember its melody or a single line from it, and I saw it less than 24 hours ago. In my experience, there's usually at least one song from a good musical that I simply can't shake from my head for days after seeing it. With Come From Away, I'm not even able to hum a single line with certainty.
The other actors are all fine and none of them is outright bad, though a moment early in the play where they all try out their "Southern accents" is rather abysmal. (Are their Newfoundlander accents just as bad and I simply don't know any better?) It's hard to find fault with a story this earnest and uplifting, especially when it's based on truth, but then it's also a terribly obvious, predictable, broad, and superficial story with no single moment given any great depth or complexity. Shortly after singing the song that makes her the play's de facto hero, Beverley Bass is forced into a situation that makes her seem downright villainous, but the complexities of that moment are simply glossed over. The whole play has the dimension of a human-interest feature from Page 8 of the local paper: quite a bit of "ain't that something!," a sprinkling of "oh gosh, that's the pits," and a heavy dousing of "well, that really is nice" with nary a hint of "gee, it really makes you think!" There's nothing here you haven't thought before.
I get the sense this play was intended to be easily slotted into the agendas of tourists who come to NYC to see the 9/11 Memorial. I imagine whoever runs the help desk there frequently says, "While you're in town, you should take the kids to see Come from Away... Oh, no, no, no, you can take the five-year-old--it's family friendly!" I've got no problem with a simple, uplifting story. There's nothing too deep about Hairspray, after all, and I adore it. I just wish this musical had more engaging songs is all.
As an ensemble piece it is indeed very impressive. Getting so many actors to play so many characters across multiple locales in quickly interspersed snippets of overlapping time without befuddling the cast or the audience--well, that must have required a lot of rehearsal. Nevertheless, the choreography seems a bit stiff and amateurish, the script is riddled with cliches, and the songs... well, they simply don't sing. Jenn Colella's solo as Beverley Bass, the first female airline captain, is a showstopper, but most of the songs barely hit the toetapper mark for me. Even though I liked Colella's song and her glorious pipes, I can't remember its melody or a single line from it, and I saw it less than 24 hours ago. In my experience, there's usually at least one song from a good musical that I simply can't shake from my head for days after seeing it. With Come From Away, I'm not even able to hum a single line with certainty.
The other actors are all fine and none of them is outright bad, though a moment early in the play where they all try out their "Southern accents" is rather abysmal. (Are their Newfoundlander accents just as bad and I simply don't know any better?) It's hard to find fault with a story this earnest and uplifting, especially when it's based on truth, but then it's also a terribly obvious, predictable, broad, and superficial story with no single moment given any great depth or complexity. Shortly after singing the song that makes her the play's de facto hero, Beverley Bass is forced into a situation that makes her seem downright villainous, but the complexities of that moment are simply glossed over. The whole play has the dimension of a human-interest feature from Page 8 of the local paper: quite a bit of "ain't that something!," a sprinkling of "oh gosh, that's the pits," and a heavy dousing of "well, that really is nice" with nary a hint of "gee, it really makes you think!" There's nothing here you haven't thought before.
I get the sense this play was intended to be easily slotted into the agendas of tourists who come to NYC to see the 9/11 Memorial. I imagine whoever runs the help desk there frequently says, "While you're in town, you should take the kids to see Come from Away... Oh, no, no, no, you can take the five-year-old--it's family friendly!" I've got no problem with a simple, uplifting story. There's nothing too deep about Hairspray, after all, and I adore it. I just wish this musical had more engaging songs is all.