Every Little Step

Despite an inherent love for musicals, I haven't really been around them. I've seen a couple performed, and watched a couple movie adaptations, but I've never been in one or exposed to more than the most popular ones like Phantom and Les Mis. So having received the recommendation from my more musically inclined girlfriend I turned on Every Little Step, a documentary about the casting of the revival of A Chorus Line, which is a musical that I had never heard of nor heard songs from. Thankfully, however, I am an actor, and this is an actor's movie.

A Chorus Line is the rather brilliant brainchild of Michael Bennett, who sat down with several fellow Broadway actors for 12 hours, talking about what it was like to be in showbusiness. He then took those stories and turned it into a musical about a bunch of actors auditioning for a Broadway show. So Every Little Step then chronicles the stories of some of the 3,000 people who showed up to audition for the revival, making it a documentary about a bunch of actors auditioning for a show about a bunch of actors auditioning for a show. Very meta.

Frankly it's a fascinating process, and the movie captures it very well. You see these rooms filled with dancers who all get turned away, then another roomful where you can see who is on their game and who just doesn't have it. Even towards the very end to watch these people who have put their livelihoods on the line for this job go so far, only to fall after 8 MONTHS of waiting. It's intense.

The only problem I have is that I wanted more. It felt like it all went by so quickly, and some final people ended up in that cast that were barely even mentioned. At the final callback there were still about 10 people we knew nothing about. I understand it would take a long time to do each and every person's story, and some of them might not have an interesting story to tell, but I would've gladly stuck around for another 30 minutes of material (it runs 1.5 hours). I know this is one of those situations where you just have to make some sacrifices so that the movie can still tell a story and end in a reasonable amount of time, but damn it, it was so interesting I couldn't help but feel the lack of depth.

For any actors or those who are involved in theater, this is a brilliant movie to see as you feel like you can really understand what these people are going through which makes the emotional impact strike all the harder. For everyone else, it's a rarely seen and very interesting look into just what it takes to make it to Broadway. In any case, it's a worthwhile view.

Every Little Step gets a 9/10.