By Steve Crum

The Prom is based on Broadway’s The Prom, and is all about going to the prom. That is simply and repetitively put. While it is reminiscent of high school-set musicals like Grease and even Hairspray, The Prom is a lesser, distant cousin. Add to that disappointing. 

Considering The Prom’s stellar cast and production credentials, it is doubly disappointing.

Check out the star roster: Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Keegan-Michael Key, Andrew Rannells, Ariana DeBose, and Kerry Washington. Despite their valiant tries, they are working with a predictable, mediocre script by Bob Martin and Chad Beguilin, who also wrote the Broadway production. What does not help is a forgettable score by Matthew Sklar and David Klotz. The 131-minute running time belies expectations.

With a string of successful TV shows he created and produced (Glee, American Horror Story, Nip-Tuck among them), Emmy and Tony winner Ryan Murphy directed and produced The Prom. 

So why does the film fall short? The answer is overproduction and slickness.

Using a plot device not so dissimilar to 1984’s Footloose, a midwestern small town (Edgewater, Indiana) prohibits a senior female student, Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Pellman) of James Madison High School from taking her female girlfriend to the prom. In Footloose, the entire community banned any rock music and dancing from invading their high school territory. Although The Prom’s nemesis is PTA head Mrs. Greene (Kerry Washington), community parents hop on her bandwagon—emphasis on BANdwagon. No way will gayness be accepted. Although the principal (Keegan-Michael Key) supports Emma, he gives in to parental pressure. 

Cut to Broadway. A pair of self-centered, aging stars who have seen better days are despairing over the opening night closing of what they both hoped to be a comeback musical. Their show, Eleanor! The Eleanor Roosevelt Story, is a super flop. For what it is worth, just the thought of an Eleanor Roosevelt musical amounts to the movie’s biggest laugh. 

The two retreat to a nearby bar, and find solace in two out-of-work actors, played by Andrew Rannells and Nicole Kidman. The four soon discover the Emma story on Twitter, unite, and travel to Indiana as a self-serving publicity angle to take up her cause. 

A whole lotta singing and dancing about love, acceptance, and sexual equality follows via enthusiastic production numbers performed by Streep, Corden, Kidman, Rannells, and company.

The song titles reflect such: Changing Lives, The Acceptance Song, Love Thy Neighbor, Tonight Belongs To You, and on and on. Nothing hummable.

Wow, The Prom glitters! But by its upbeat finale, we are reaffirmed that there is no gold amongst the glitter. 

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GRADE on an A-F Scale: C-