Remember It's a Musical

(published in the SB Indie January 5, 2006.)

Remember It’s a Musical

The Producers. Matthew Broderick, Will Ferrell, Nathan Lane, and Uma Thurman star in a film written by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan, based on Brooks’s play, and directed by Susan Stroman.

Reviewed by Molly Freedenberg

Within the first 10 minutes of The Producers, I began to wonder if my boyfriend — who’d opted out of the free movie ticket — had been right to heed the Mel Brooks film’s unflattering reviews. Matthew Broderick’s portrayal of nerdy accountant Leo Bloom seemed embarrassingly exaggerated and Nathan Lane’s on-screen version of sneaky producer Max Bialystock seemed only slightly less affected. The whole production felt like a high school drama project gone awry.

And then something happened. I stopped comparing The Producers to serious film endeavors and remembered what the film is: a real, old-fashioned musical in the tradition of Mary Poppins and The Music Man — but, of course, with the tongue-in-cheek, self-reflexive Mel Brooks twist. And as such, it’s fantastic.

The film (which was originally written to be a film, then became a hit show on Broadway, and now is a film again) simultaneously makes fun of the cheesy musicals and is a cheesy musical. Broderick and Lane’s performances — and, indeed, all the over-acted parts in the film — are caricatures on purpose, as they are satirical versions of the similarly, but earnestly, overacted parts in classic musical theater. Meanwhile, the musical numbers have all the entertainment value and impeccable choreographic timing that make everything from Singing in the Rain to A Chorus Line so watchable, but with Brooks’s characteristic irreverence (a chorus line of little old ladies with walkers?) to take it to the next level.

And the highlight of the film is the musical within the musical, Springtime for Hitler — with its tap-dancing Nazis and swishy Führer — and its creator, played by a lederhosen-clad Will Ferrell, who is delightful doing what he did so well in the Austin Powers series: playing a clueless foreign guy who gets injured.

The only real shame of the film is that Uma Thurman isn’t a more graceful dancer, but the shortcoming is less about her not being fun to watch (she is) and more about the value of a really great song-and-dance girl. All in all, The Producers was a great production, inspiring loud applause from the crowd and leaving me giddy, light, and wanting to shuffle-ball-change down the street when it was done.

A word of warning, though: If your sweetie doesn’t already like musicals, don’t try to wean him or her on this one. Without the contemporary music of Moulin Rouge or the stylized filming of Chicago, The Producers is a poor tool for conversion to the musical-loving ranks. But if your honey knows a good synchronized swastika dance when he or she sees one, this is definitely a date movie worth checking out.