A teaser for Ryan Murphy’s upcoming musical comedy The Prom is out. Like a certain controversial musical that released last year featuring feline characters (Cats, if you don’t know what I am talking about), The Prom is similarly star-studded. Starring Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Jo Ellen Pellman, Keegan-Michael Key, Andrew Rannells, Ariana DeBose and Kerry Washington, the film is based on the 2018 Broadway musical of the same name.
The Prom has Streep and Corden’s characters, Dee Dee Allen and Barry Glickman, playing stage stars whose new and expensive Broadway show flops and threatens to end their careers. They come across a small-town high-school girl Emma who has been banned from attending prom with her girlfriend.
Allen and Glickman team up with a pair of actors Angie and Trent and decide to help Emma in order to restore their public image and careers.
The Prom looks grand and glitzy. It features a few good-looking dance numbers and the tone is by and large exuberant. Also, this film appears to be something that Ryan Murphy can do really well. Add to all that, it certainly looks better than Cats, though that is not necessarily high praise.
The official synopsis of the film reads, “Dee Dee Allen and Barry Glickman are New York City stage stars with a crisis on their hands: their expensive new Broadway show is a major flop that has suddenly flatlined their careers. Meanwhile, in small-town Indiana, high school student Emma is experiencing a very different kind of heartbreak: despite the support of the high school principal (Keegan-Michael Key), the head of the PTA has banned her from attending the prom with her girlfriend, Alyssa (Ariana DeBose). When Dee Dee and Barry decide that Emma’s predicament is the perfect cause to help resurrect their public images, they hit the road with Angie and Trent (Andrew Rannells), another pair of cynical actors looking for a professional lift. But when their self-absorbed celebrity activism unexpectedly backfires, the foursome find their own lives upended as they rally to give Emma a night where she can truly celebrate who she is.” The Prom will release on Netflix on December 11, 2020.