Lucy Gossip

I am truly saddened to be offering a 1 star rating for this film. I wanted to watch it with an open mind and without preconceptions based on what's been said about it. However, 3 songs in and I have already paused twice, wincing at some of the choices that were made. Let's take the opening song, for example. There are some random moments in the musical mixing where individual characters' voices have been brought forward, but with no apparent purpose. Suddenly a harmony line dominates the chorus, and my ear gets confused as to why this voice is interrupting what might have otherwise been well blended harmonies. Even so, they don't seem to be particularly well put together. During "The Naming of Cats" the spoken word is completely scattered and out of time. I'm not sure if someone didn't bother to edit, or if they were trying to make a deliberate effect out of it, but it did not work for me. The message of this song needed to be clear and concise, not scattered and hard to hear. The movie does not benefit from it's all-star cast. It is based on an extremely difficult to perform dance-heavy musical, and what became apparent is that the performers were thrown off by the extensive choreography. This has resulted in pitch issues, breathiness and a slight air of desperation as they do their best to get through the numbers. I feel for them because I'm sure they put huge amounts of work into the performances, but the reality is, the movie needed a group of trained musical theatre professionals who know how to handle the combined singing and movement. As yet, I have not watched enough of the film to make a fair assessment on all the characters, but if it was to continue in this way, it would make for a very sorry performance, when it could have otherwise been a fantastic film. As a lover of musicals, I feel that there have been some incredibly poor directing choices that hurt the show and did not make the most of their cast. On top of that, the overall style strikes me as very confusing and strange. It was an intriguing musical to try and convert into a film, but for now, I think I will be sticking to the stage version. EDIT: I have now watched the rest of the film. I will concede that the second half is mildly better than the first, as it managed to generate some emotion. It was *almost* bearable. There was a weak attempt at a Victoria/Mistoffelees ship, which would have been nice if only it didn't all take place in the span of one night. Overall, in my opinion the strongest performers were Jennifer Hudson and Taylor Swift. They displayed the most character and varied emotions.