Victor’s review published on Letterboxd:
What a delight! Open’s with a mindblowing oner through some mind blowing set design, with some fun and fantastic musical tension that had me absolutely hooked right away. The cinematography was consistently excellent and dynamic, and the set design and world just felt so fucking real. It’s easily the most ‘real’ a musical has ever felt, with the scale and detail of its world, as well as having a sense of grit, realism, and visceral consequence that is absent from most musicals I have seen.
The performances are all amazing, doing exactly what they need to do, and being all so entertaining to watch. They all had such personality and felt totally authentic to the time period. The songs were all a complete joy and the accompanying choreography was absolutely riveting. Also, I don’t know if it’s just because I watched Satantango, but this felt like 40 minutes shorter than it really was, which is always a good thing! I wanted more!
If I had to complain about anything, I’d say that in terms of story and theme, it’s a little simple, and I felt that the lead romance could’ve used quite a bit more time to develop. I know it’s an adaptation of a hollywood musical where love is literally at first sight, and I was still able to get wrapped up in their romance, but I would’ve preferred if the movie were an extra 30 minutes with new numbers and scenes of them slowly falling more and more in love and developing more of a tangible relationship. I know you can’t really make a faithful adaptation like that, but nonetheless! Overall though, such a riveting and impressive musical. I’d gladly watch it again!