The plot concerns the machinations of two next door neighbors who pretend to have a feud in the hopes that their children will fall in love (the lure forbidden fruit and all that). They enlist the help of a strange traveling circus to aid them in their plan. The first half of the movie is quite decent and somewhat sweet, and I enjoyed it very much. And then, for some reason, the movie completely derails, gets flat out bizarre (and earns its PG rating) before ending on a weird note.

If you are a die-hard fan of the original musical you will probably hate this movie, because the music has been basically butchered. The performances range from good (Joel Grey) to lame (Joe McIntyre) to inexplicable (Vegas magician Teller). But then there is Jonathan Morris. I've never seen him in anything else, but he has an incredible, mesmerizing presence. The script changes his character completely halfway through the film, which is annoying, but his performance continues to stay with me, especially his gentle rendition of "Try to Remember" (which, despite being the most famous song in the musical, is given about one minute of screen time. Grrr.). He made the movie worth seeing (once) for me, but all others beware.

It's really too bad; there was great potential here but the filmmakers muffed it. Maybe they'll try again someday, but until then you can check out the original Broadway soundtrack to see what all the fuss was about in the first place. I give this film version 2.5 stars, which I rounded down to two. Morris is really the only reason to catch this one.

Movie Grade: C/C-

The show on stage is performed without sets and with a lot of poetic suggestion from the script and imagination from the audience. On film it is not exactly transported to reality, but would more accurately be described as surrealistic, which fits the musical format perfectly. The film is set in the 1920s, a relatively more "innocent" time, at least in our memories, and thus makes the innocence and naivete of the young lovers easily palatable. The characters, let by Joel Gray as one of the fathers, live in the middle of a barren desert, their houses situated side by side and separated by a white picket fence. A mysterious carnival sets up shop nearby, run by magician/illusionist El Gallo, whom the fathers hire to arrange an abduction that will bring their children together. The story plays itself out pretty much the same as on stage (the original writers were wisely retained), and due to its strange, surrealistic quality it all makes sense in a dream-like way, even when the characters break into song.

All but one of the beautiful songs are in the film--the "Plant a Radish" song is gone, but is not really missed, as it didn't advance the story that much. The "Rape Ballet" song from the original version of the show has been changed to a more politically correct similar song that didn't use such an ugly word as "rape" but serves the same purpose. (I'm told that several years ago the original song had been replaced by this one in the stage show as well, though I'm not certain. The show has been playing Off-Broadway for 40 years.) Perhaps the most well-known song from the show, "Try to Remember" is not sung at the beginning as on stage, but rather at the very end, which is quite fitting for the film as selected clips of the preceding film are intercut like faded memories. The "Metaphor" song is cleverly staged at the carnival in front of a silent film of romantic scenes. "Soon It's Gonna Rain" is sung under a big tree with El Gallo hiding in the branches while sprinkling glittering rain onto the love-struck couple, and performers from the carnival hiding in the bushes providing vocal accompaniment--a skillful melding of the theatrical and cinematic.

The vocals of the actors are all superb. Musical arrangements which where just a piano and harp on stage are now fully orchestrated, but not overdone and work well. Finally, in keeping with the theatrical spirit of the piece, the cast actually does a curtain call from the carnival stage during the end credits.

Theatre purists should not be wary of this film. Fans of the show should not be disappointed as long as they are not expecting a mere filmed stageplay. Understandably, it is not really a commercial picture to compete with the special effects action flicks popular with the coveted teen audiences, so it will just have a limited theatrical release in big city art houses. In fact, the picture was film five years ago but languished on the shelf as a difficult-to-market film. Thankfully it will finally introduce millions of non-theatregoers to the wonderful story and songs, and will probably do most business on home video among traditional musical lovers. The DVD release takes advantage of the wonderful score, the ability to search for favorite songs at random, as well as deleted scenes.

See "The Fantasticks". Especially if you are an adult. It will remind you of what it was like to be young and innocent. You will want to revisit that feeling over and over again. As this work reminds us, that innocence is something none of us realize we have until we have lost it. There's no other way to know it. Kind of bittersweet, but a paradox of life.