WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Everybody's Talking About Jamie, now streaming on Amazon Prime.

If everyone in the world got a nickel every time a film came out based on a popular stage musical inspired by a true story about a queer teenager whose plans for prom ruffles feathers among the homophobic members of their small-town community, everyone in the world would have two nickels. But all joking aside, there are a surprising number of similarities between the two movies in question: Netflix's The Prom and Everybody's Talking About Jamie, a film slated to release through 20th Century Studios before the COVID-19 pandemic led Disney to sell its distribution rights to Amazon. And the fact that these musicals began streaming nine months apart makes it all the more natural to compare them.

Despite their commonalities, Everybody's Talking About Jamie has gotten a fairly positive reception (79 percent Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes after 70 reviews, with an average score of 6.8/10), where The Prom earned mixed grades (54 percent on RT after 203 reviews, with an average score of 5.8/10) and was flat-out panned by some major critics. Part of the reason the former hits differently than the latter is its story, which focuses exclusively on Jamie and how his dream to not only become a drag queen but also attend prom in drag divides the residents of Sheffield, England, including his supportive mother, Margaret. The Prom, however, largely unfolds from the point of view of a group of struggling Broadway stars who, for selfish reasons, decide to help Emma, a queer teenager from Edgewater, Indiana, who wants to attend her prom with her girlfriend, Alyssa.

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Although The Prom aspires to satirize celebrities who only engage in social causes when it helps their careers while also telling an uplifting queer coming-of-age story about overcoming prejudice, it's only really successful at the former of those tasks and winds up reducing Emma to a supporting character in her own story. There's also the matter of the Broadway celebs themselves, whose overbearing personalities are, by design, both off-putting and endearing at the same time, yet end up perpetuating stereotypes about women and/or queer actors more than they subvert them. That's particularly the case when it comes to Barry Glickman, a gay theater star whose would-be touching story of self-acceptance and reconciling with his mother is undercut by James Corden and his tendency to portray Barry as more of a caricature than a real person.

By comparison, Everybody's Talking About Jamie and its cast imbue the characters around Jamie with a good deal of humanity without allowing them to overshadow him, be it Richard E. Grant's turn as Jamie's unapologetically bold drag queen mentor Hugo Battersby/Loco Chanelle or Ralph Ineson as Jamie's father Wayne, a homophobe whose refusal to accept and love his son for who he truly is feels painfully believable. That's not to say the film couldn't do a better job of fleshing out the interiority of the people in Jamie's life -- especially the women like his Muslim friend Pritti -- or isn't guilty of letting some of its antagonists off too easy, as it arguably does with Jamie's disapproving teacher Miss Hedge and Dean, a macho student who delights in bullying Jamie and Pritti. All the same, Everybody's Talking About Jamie paints its villains in deeper strokes than The Prom does with its own "Big Bad" Mrs. Greene, Alyssa's mom and president of Edgewater's PTA.

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Everybodys Talking About Jamie musical

Everybody's Talking About Jamie is more visually confined than The Prom, yet even there it has an advantage. Because so much of the film takes place in mundane locations like the cafeteria and classrooms of Jamie's school or the cramped interior of Hugo's drag shop, it's forced to get more inventive with the way it stages its musical numbers. As a result, the movie features some genuinely creative sequences, ranging from a dazzling number where a school hallway transforms into a fashion catwalk to a poignant montage that follows Jamie and Hugo through a series of VHS recordings of the latter's experiences as a young drag queen and queer activist. And though The Prom's set pieces are often bigger and boast more elaborate dance choreography, they're less imaginative in their staging, relying more on spinning camerawork and not striking compositions or lighting.

At their core, Everybody's Talking About Jamie and The Prom are feel-good queer musicals that speak to a broad audience, as opposed to challenging works of queer storytelling with more niche appeal like the upcoming film festival hits The Power of the Dog and Titane. Yet, for the reasons discussed, The Prom comes across as less earnest and smugger than the former does, as far as their attempts to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community go. That's not to say there aren't things to enjoy about both movies, but it does explain why responses to Everybody's Talking About Jamie tend to be more positive, or at the very least charitable, than those for The Prom.

To see why Everybody's Talking About Jamie shines where The Prom falls flat, the film is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

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