I don’t write about TV shows here, but if I were to start
doing so Glee would not be my first
choice. I’d rather write about Breaking
Bad, or Mad Men, or Louie, or Parks & Recreation, or Community,
or The Good Wife, or, or, or. But, that’s neither here nor there. None of those great shows have
a recently released 3D concert movie to their name. Which is just as well since
Glee, a show about a bunch of misfit
choir kids in an Ohio high school, has a concept ripe for cinema. The
widescreen and big sound could have potentially given the show the fullest
expression of its inconsistent and deeply flawed musical soul.
The show itself started promisingly enough, but by the
maddening second season it became clear that showrunners Ryan Murphy, Ian
Brennan, and Brad Falchuk were not making the show I was ready to like. (To be
fair, Falchuk, more than any of the other creators, seems to be interested in
emotional coherence and narrative momentum). I want Glee to be a heartfelt high school musical with characters using
their songs to express deeply held feelings, for production numbers to bubble
up just because regular old talking just can’t handle the emotions on screen.
Actually, the show is sometimes just that, and that’s when it’s good.
Ironically enough, the best episode the series has yet produced, season one’s
“Dream On,” was that. It was directed by Joss Whedon, a TV auteur in his own
right, creating what is perhaps the clearest and strangest example of an
outsider coming in and showing a better understanding of what a show should and
could be.
Most of the time, the show is miscalculated comedy and
thinly written characters that change their circumstances and emotions whenever
and however it best suits the whim of the week. It’s exhausting and dull with
terrible teasing flashes of brilliance. It’s often one of the best shows and
one of the worst shows on the air right now, usually in the same episode,
sometimes at the same time. It has attracted legions of vocal and committed
fans though, and Glee: The 3D Concert
Movie is sure to make them happy. For a hopeful but discouraged Glee skeptic like me, it’s hard to get
too excited about it.
The film is technically proficient, loud, glittery, high-energy,
and short. It features the cast singing and dancing (though the editing doesn’t
do the choreography any favors) and every-so-often talking backstage in
character. Once in a great while, the proceedings pause to showcase real-life
stories from fans who have found inspiration in Glee, even though said inspiration is mostly tangential and
incidental. There’s lots of screaming and swooning going on – this is a very
youthful audience – but, as if to prove that this is no Hannah Montana concert movie, we get strategic cutaways to
middle-aged fans flipping equally out over seeing their favorite characters
singing memorable songs from past episodes.
What makes the show itself so good in patches, the very
good, even great, acting from Chris Colfer and Mike O’Malley and the terrific
charisma from the likes of Darren Criss and Lea Michele, is missing here by the
movie’s very nature. It’s just a string of performances and a bunch of
self-congratulatory multi-media aggrandizement. I don’t doubt that people going
to see Glee: The 3D Concert Movie will
get exactly what they want to see. The movie is exactly what it set out to be,
for better or worse. But couldn’t director Kevin Tancharoen, last seen trying
to remake Fame, have tried to do
something more with this opportunity? Maybe the constraints of being disposable
between-season product, fuel for the money machine that is Glee, prevented him from doing so.
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