The Prom (2020)

Ryan Murphy's adaptation of the Broadway musical arrives with its thesis fully assembled and its sleeves rolled up. A troupe of narcissistic Broadway performers descends on a small Indiana town to champion a lesbian teenager barred from her prom, and the film never once doubts the righteousness of its own errand. The casting is curated with evident care: a newcomer in the lead, a queer Black girlfriend, a supporting ensemble assembled for variety. The romance at the center is treated with sincerity, and the climactic public kiss lands as the intended emotional payoff. All of this is competent and earnest.

The trouble is the delivery. Characters preach acceptance at a monster truck rally and are booed off stage, which the film presents as martyrdom instead of the obvious outcome. Every song functions as instruction. The audience is told what to feel, then told again in the reprise. Critics were divided, and the divisions were instructive: praise for the message, complaints about the narrative, and a persistent discomfort with James Corden's performance as a flamboyant gay man, a turn that borrows the mannerisms and forgets the interior life.

For all its advocacy, the film keeps a narrow ledger. Women drive the plot, though the organizing principle is sexual orientation, not a feminist argument. The Black performers are present but race is never the subject. There is a faint jab at celebrity self-promotion, nothing resembling a critique of wealth. No environmental concern, no body politics, no neurodivergent characters, no engagement with history. It is a message musical that knows exactly one message, and repeats it at volume for two hours. The sincerity is real. So is the fatigue.