‘The Prom’, a musical comedy starring numerous famous actors and actresses, is quite the glittery extravaganza that I was not prepared for and truly, wasn’t too pleased with.  

The movie focuses on two New York city stars, Dee Dee Allen and Barry Glickman, hoping to fulfill their dreams of becoming relevant celebrities. After their new Broadway show flops, they’re forced to try and save their careers before it’s too late. 

They are both devastated and intrigued when they find out about a high school student, Emma Nolan, that is being banned from the school prom for simply wanting to attend with her girlfriend. Dee Dee and Barry decide that going over there and taking action for this poor girl is the perfect opportunity for them to revive their public images. 

The movie overall was very corny. Some scenes, although attempting to be wholesome, were hard to watch because I kept cringing at it all. I will give them the benefit of the doubt, however, because musicals tend to fit under that category of being cliché. 

That’s not to say that the storyline was bad. It was simply the execution of it that let me down. 

In the beginning, I was actually pretty entertained and interested. Unfortunately, as the movie progressed I got much more bored and the scenes became unnecessarily long. The movie ran for 2 hours and 12 minutes and I couldn’t help but think that they could’ve shortened, cut out, or changed a lot of the parts. 

The cast was perfect and the exciting acting was, in my opinion, the movie’s strongest suit. I mean seriously though, it’s almost impossible to go wrong when you have Meryl Streep and James Corden as a power team in the same film. If it were not executed in the best way, the actors made it watchable. 

I know that the purpose of this movie was to highlight the character development of Dee Dee and Barry, the two conceited and narcissistic celebrities. However, I kept hoping that Emma was going to get more screen time especially covering her family issues and her relationship with her girlfriend, Alyssa. 

Moving on to the main purpose of a musical, the songs themselves. They were just mediocre. I felt like I was watching an extended episode of Glee or a Disney Channel special. To be honest, I’m not totally complaining about that.

To say this movie was bland is nothing but a lie. It’s your typical flashy, colorful, and noisy musical. It was very emotionally bland. Considering that this movie covered sensitive topics such as homophobia, it seemed weirdly upbeat and unnecessarily happy discussing it. Look, I get that it’s a musical, but it was a little too much sometimes. 

In the end, I think it’s most important to make note of the fact that this musical was based loosely on a true story from only 10 years. Homophobia as drastic as this still exists, so I applaud this film for speaking up about matters such as these. 

‘The Prom’ is currently available on Netflix.