Review of Carousel (2013) by Peter S — 12 May 2017

Two stars is generous for this piece of crap. I'll just dive right in. Billy Bigelow reminds me of an angry, white Trump supporter, of which I am not. He's a dick for the entire film until Julie says she's pregnant with his child.

That finally gets him to believe, but then his life is cut short because he's an idiot and falls on his own knife. When he finally gets the chance to make amends with his widow and daughter, his daughter gets tortured and harassed by bullies for a too long time before he steps in.

Within a minute of speaking to her, he slaps her hand. All in all, he gives too little too late. Something else that really pissed me off was how uneven the tone is. It's a dark musical, no doubt, but it wants you to forget that it's dark by putting in somewhat upbeat numbers, like the song about June, you'll never walk alone and Louise's ballet.

However, it's always in the back of your mind that it's dark. Not to mention that Louise's ballet ends with her sobbing. There's a big difference between having a dark and visionary ballet and having a dark and visionary ballet for the excuse of being dark and for tears to flow.

The ballet in Oklahoma is much more worthwhile than what you get from carousel. This movie is simply an excuse to have a dark musical. While it's no doubt a handful of the songs and dances are wonderful, you really can't take your mind off how dark it is and how it unevenly tries to be so many things at once.

I guess the only truly dark musical we can trust is Sweeney Todd. (Les mis doesn't count, it's uplifting throughout).