The Musical (2026)

 

Many years ago, I got excited about a film titled Hamlet 2. In that film, Steve Coogan stars as a jaded high school theater teacher who decides to stage a wild musical sequel to Shakespeare’s play. As the film goes on, the play grows wilder and wilder until it becomes an effects bonanza about a time-traveling Jesus Christ. I never got there with Hamlet 2; its music amuses me, but the story ultimately falls short. The wacky premise bests the film itself.

The Musical suffers a similar fate. Although a story of petty revenge with middle school theater kids as pawns puts a smile on my face, it barely scrapes together enough meaningful moments and likable characters to reach a successful in-story play.

Doug (Will Brill) nurtures playwright dreams, but he’s stuck teaching middle school theatre under the faker-than-video game-plastic Principal Brady (Rob Lowe). The one consolation was Abigail (Gillian Jacobs), his art teacher girlfriend, but at the start of a new year, she’s dating Brady, and Doug’s pissed. With few avenues for revenge, Doug tasks his earnest tween cast with tanking Brady’s accolades by dumping their rendition of West Side Story for an uncomfortable original he wrote.

Because I enjoyed the ending so much, I find myself retroactively softening toward the rest, but there were definite problems. The Musical runs only 87 minutes, so several scenes feel dashed off, and the school setting oscillates between well-rendered and eye-roll-inducing. The movie loses sight of Lowe for too many stretches, and Jacobs doesn’t get much to do. That’s too bad because they both nail the assignment: Jacobs is perfectly sweet and earnest in her limited scenes, and Lowe, though no longer the strapping Chris Traegor of Parks and Rec, plays punchable face to perfection. Both excelled.

Unfortunately, Brill did not, although I’d point more to the screenplay than to him. In order to maneuver the chess pieces quickly, Brill careens between versions of Doug to fit each scene’s demands. One minute, he’s a sloppy brooder, the next a beloved leader, but the connective tissue must’ve landed on the cutting room floor. Early on, his awkward orneriness turned me against him—I’m allergic to the Principal Bradys of the world, but Doug is too delusional and overbearing to root for. There’s a scene he shares with Jacobs on a set of riders that basically ruined him for me; he’s an unlikable, charmless character that the writers forgot was unlikable in the final act. While I empathize with Doug’s situation, I never got there with him. That hurt the film.

I suspect I’m being over-harsh on such a silly film. Once the film stops making kids mouthpieces, their performances add to the fun; they seemed to be having fun, that’s for sure. There are no original songs in The Musical, which disappointed me, but that final show’s aesthetic and mocking gravitas sell me on the film’s vision. Perhaps if I had a theatre background, I’d find more fruit to pluck, but I did choir in high school.

Like Hamlet 2, The Musical follows a fun idea for sure. But while I suspect most of the film will be fairly forgettable, I’ll always have that final staging to smile about.

 Watched via the Sundance Film Festival's Online Screening