EcodelCinema
Freak Show – Review: A film that reflects on diversity
By Maria Grazia Bosu
November 11, 2017
Trudy Styler’s film transpires on the big screen James St James ‘s 2007 novel , a famous mask of overcoming disguise and excess , starred in years of American television where the artist recounts his personal youth experience.
“Freak Show” follows the story of Billy Bloom, his sudden transfer to the sumptuous paternal residence and the consequent forced change of school, for him really difficult to deal with. The boy – far from his father for years – was accustomed to living with his mother, who had always stimulated his son to be himself, to appreciate what he was, and not to waste his life.
His exuberance in dress and his unbalanced attitude put Billy immediately at the edge of a school where even the professors do little for the integration of the other. Only the quarterback of the football team, a true celebrity within the school society, seems to make friends with Billy, who has to go to school among the heaviest crowds of violent companions, the indifference of the mass of pupils and professors, and home between the distress of the distant mother and the apparent indifference of her father.
The Styler, with a lustrous glitter and a touch of glamor, well suited to the story, manages to make a gentle, sincere, delicate product on the desire to be accepted . Alex Lawther, known to the general public for having played young Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game”, is well dressed as a “drag queen” at gunpoint. Bette Midler interprets, as usual with great magistrality, a mother often over the lines; good also the other actors.
“Freak Show” is a good product that will appeal to young people and not only, and has the value of delivering a concept that is as current as the one of inclusion, without pushing too much the pedal of suffering and drama . Billy seems to face even the toughest moments, to show courage and desire to be appreciated for what he is, without seeking hypocritical mediations.
The passion for the disguise colors the turn, and Lawther-Billy’s smile, that problems can not turn off, enchants the spectator. We hope that the day comes when movies like these are not necessary, days when respect for each other, far from us, prevails over everything, making stories like this anachronistic.
