Stand! (2019)
(On Cable TV, January 2022) It took me a very long time, far more than I would have anticipated, for me to warm up to Stand!—and even then, the film limped across the finishing line, barely above what I’d consider to be the strict minimum. I’m as surprised as you are—after all, I have a well-documented linking for musical comedies, and taking a look at one obscure and inglorious aspect of Canadian history (the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 and let’s be clear: the “inglorious” part of it was the government overreaction, not the strike itself) is squarely in my wheelhouse. But I am picky about my musicals, and the one style that grates on my nerves is the earnest have-everybody-sing kind of stage musicals, of which Stand! is a sometimes too-faithful adaptation. The result is a film that doesn’t have the grace and power of good film musicals: under Robert Adetuyi’s direction, it simply feels like a film with songs awkwardly inserted in the middle of the narrative, and with no striking choreography to speak of. Focusing the story on an immigrant Romeo-and-Juliet romance is laudable, but it also muddies much of the historical records that the film should represent (let alone hammering more modern language in an attempt to add further thematic weight in a story that already has plenty of it). Things get better toward the end of the film, as the sakes are raised and the songs become more self-assured. But while Stand! eventually works its way to a not-terrible conclusion, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that it could have been much, much better.