'The Prom'

There is a poignant story itching to emerge from "The Prom," but director Ryan Murphy and playwrights-screenwriters Chad Beguelin and Bob Martin have loaded this Broadway adaptation with so many corny in-jokes and pedestrian songs it becomes as misguided and self-congratulatory as its showbiz protagonists.

It's one thing to poke fun at stars whose self-regard exceeds their actual talent, but the tunes by Beguelin, David Klotz and Matthew Sklar aren't any more clever or catchy than the ones they supposedly parody. "The Prom" begins with a new musical about Eleanor Roosevelt that opens with lots of glitz and publicity and closes on the same evening.

The shows stars, Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) and Barry Glickman (James Corden), are in despair. Her Tonys aren't going to sell tickets to a show nobody wants to see. Their pal Angie (Nicole Kidman) isn't faring any better. She has spent decades in choruses and never gets the lead roles because former sitcom stars are bigger draws.

Speaking of fleeting TV fame, Julliard alumnus Trent Oliver (Andrew Rannells) is tending bar now that his own sitcom is canceled. If his show is faintly remembered, anyone who spends time with him gets frequent reminders of his Julliard education.

Before the four can mope their way to oblivion, they discover that a town in Indiana has canceled its high school prom because a lesbian named Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Pellman) wants to take another girl to the prom as her date.

Because the quartet grew up as outcasts in the Rust Belt before discovering fleeting recognition in the Big Apple, they rush to the Hoosier State in hopes of getting Emma's school to restart the prom in a more inclusive manner.

Curiously, it's in Indiana where "The Prom" switches from bloodless satire to an occasionally appealing earnestness. Emma feels understandably isolated and even persecuted, and it doesn't help that her girlfriend Alyssa (Ariana DeBose) is firmly living in the closet. Alyssa is hesitant to sacrifice her popularity as a cheerleader to acknowledging her feelings toward Emma.

If Murphy has trouble establishing the right tone for the showbiz tale, he seems more at home in capturing simple teen angst. Pellman and DeBose are appealing in part because their faces are unfamiliar, and everyone has fallen in love with someone who has trouble acknowledging any mutual feelings. It's fitting that the one song worth humming after the film is over is "Dance With You," in which the two wail about the prom they can't have.

When the movie focuses on these two, it comes alive with an earnestness that the New York interlopers just don't have. Steep, as always, nails Dee Dee's warped priorities, but Corden's gushy demeanor works better for hosting a talk show than it does in a leading role.

To his credit, Murphy seamlessly makes the material cinematic. It's refreshing to see a stage adaptation where the dancing is shot properly (it's nice to be able to follow the movement) and the actors aren't bellowing their lines to a non-existent back row.

Unfortunately, Murphy only fitfully uses his deep supporting cast. Kerry Washington is stuck with a one-note role as an intolerant PTA member, and Kidman seems under-utilized. It's also hard to cheer for characters who root for fellow actors to lose roles so they can swipe them up.

Sadly, comedies like "In and Out" and musicals like "Hairspray" have done a better job of exploring how people's lives can be upended by antiquated prejudices. Both of the previous films had a biting wit that's missing here.

Then again, it might have been interesting to see Emma and Alyssa resolve their dilemma without interlopers from the Great White Way. For central characters, they seem more like props when they should be the stars.

Uptight PTA head Mrs. Greene (Kerry Washington) has no idea her daughter, Alyssa (Ariana DeBose), is the secret girlfriend of a student she has banned from attending the prom with her samesex date in Ryan Murphy’s campy adaptation of the Broadway musical “The Prom.”