I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like this which is why I left it 7 years before actually consuming it.

First thing I noticed is it was very BIG, the songs were huge, the cinematography like wise, and very notably the performances, no subtlety here. Dancing like their lives depended on it even though it's only the number where they order a cup of coffee, type thing.

The songs were really good, no denying that, although a couple of them sounded the same, mined directly from the same high emotion seam.

You'd think this was the story of a world leader who saved millions and not a con-artist showman with a very dubious record His first exhibition (which this film conveniently 'glossed' over, in that they completely left it out!! Was he rented 80 year old slave woman to exhibit her as a 160 year old, the renting was to get around the anti slavery rules in his state that didn't exist in the state he was renting her from, and she looked 160 cos she was blind and very unwell. So there's that rewriting of reality to make an over simplistic, jingoistic chest thumper. Even knowing all that it was hard to not get sucked into it all, it was very well 'crafted' if that's the right word. Manipulated?

What ever it was I found myself conflicted, knowing the reality and seeing the overblown bombast of the result which does land, mostly due to those really good songs, that sing passionately about things that are not real for this movie.