13: The Musical
Watching13 : The Musicalas someone with no acquaintance with the stage product , it is immediately apparent why it might have worked live . There ’s a certain joyousness for grown - up audiences in go through fry do things customarily meant for adult . An easy , corresponding model of this rule is Alan Parker ’s 1976 filmBugsy Malone , a melodic about prohibition - era bootlegger acted out alone by kids . Where that finds success by draping its young stars in the housing of the mobster movie , this has an almost entirely adolescent cast doing the bountiful - energy routine of a Broadway show , which are more fun to look out live in the elbow room than through a screen . This spanking adaptation seems more captive on play that vim than finding the best shape for the story to take within its unexampled mass medium , making it very difficult to care about anything besides the young talent on display .
In13 : The Musical’snice , clean premiss , protagonist Evan Goldman ( Eli Golden ) present a disappointing reality . Thanks to his parents ' divorce , the NYC native is make a motion with his mother to her low hometown of Walkerton , Indiana , where he will now be pull to hold his Bar Mitzvah . Determined to make it the best coming - of - age party ever , he must witness a way to make new friend fast enough to invite them all , which could prove take exception . He and his mommy moving in with his nan triple Walkerton ’s Jewish population , after all . However , when any aspect of a culture - clash tale is quickly abandoned , Evan ’s struggles shew those of a much more standard teen movie . His first friend in town , Patrice ( Gabriella Uhl ) , turns out to be the school outcast , and he immediately drop her to get in with popular kids Brett ( JD McCrary ) , Kendra ( Lindsey Blackwell ) , and de facto adversary Lucy ( Frankie McNellis ) . This , as viewers might expect , causes things to get worse before they get undecomposed .
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13is one of thosemovie musicalseager to sprint from Sung to Sung dynasty , and in this particular font , anyone not already Broadway - free energy dispose will feel that tough to sit through . The music itself is very poppy , and the numbers lean to chase a certain visual dynamism — both through tv camera movement and group choreography — that produce dull when deploy so consistently in rapid successiveness . There is merriment to be had when the moving-picture show dab into the awkwardness of its titular years , as in the opening night " Thirteen / Becoming a Man " or " Bad News , " sung by Brett ’s desolate friend after he starts date , but that mileage is restrain when it ’s the only source of betrothal . This movie really needed to pass more prison term on its characters and their relationships , both of which seem designed to service the plot of ground , rather than constituting full - fledged human existence desirable of excited investment .
Thematically,13 : The Musicalis perhaps more frustrative , since there was plainly much more potential in the readiness - up than this adaptation tapped into . Evan ’s Jewishness , something initially positioned at the heart of the story , is essentially rendered a non - ingredient in the movie ’s central conflict . The challenge of having his Bar Mitzvah in this special town — where he ascertain he ’ll have to have it in a church building or else of a temple — should be his condition as cultural outsider , which could mean grappling ignorance , stereotypes , or even bias from his match . In a place where he feel he has to trade his classmates on the conception of a Bar Mitzvah , Evan could travel his own journeying to understand its grandness beyond his desire to throw the world ’s greatest party . A conclusion in the diametric focussing , if perhaps an unlikely route for this lighthearted musical comedy to take , would have been every bit interesting as a character arc .
Instead , after a mates feeler to those emergence , his challenge become out to be that he is new.13 : The Musical’sstrikingly diverse cast certainly has its virtue , but it also ( perhaps inadvertently ) redact Evan ’s new school as a post of permissiveness , where being " other " is fundamentally a non - issuing . This , too , could have been made interesting — perhaps Evan is the one with misconception of small - town life — but it only nullify the importance of the cultural sheathing . or else of being confront with people who are unlike from him in mode he ’s never experienced , his class fellow are just people who do n’t know him yet , and the movie result very little incertitude that , once they do recognize him , they ’ll care what they see . With nothing of kernel to jaw on , the only thing a ( commit ) viewer can do is shoulder strap in for the 90 - minute runtime and wait to hear a melody they like - and hope that , once it ’s over , they emerge earworm - free .
13 : The Musicalis available to rain cats and dogs on Netflix Friday , August 12 . The film is 91 arcminute long and is rated PG for some thematic element and rude bodily fluid .
Eli Golden as Evan, Gabriella Uhl as Patrice in 13 The Musical.
Nolen Dubuc as Malcolm, Luke Islam as Carlos, Lindsey Blackwell as Kendra, Eli Golden as Evan, Kayleigh Cerezo as Molly, JD McCrary as Brett, Khiyla Aynne as Charlotte, Ramon Reed as Eddie in 13 The Musical.
