While I can say for sure that Trent won’t make my eventual Top Five of Andrew Rannells roles/performances, he’s definitely my favorite character in the film, and I feel like that would be true even if I hadn’t gone into it looking forward to Rannells the most. It’s kind of an underwritten supporting role in a decent-not-great musical, but Rannells mines this part for all it’s worth.
Barry and Dee Dee, as The Prom’s biggest and most self-involved Broadway stars, are able to be characters with at least a little dimension. By contrast, the second-string stars Trent and Angie are both narrower characters. Each has a “thing,” and most of their material/jokes revolve around that one thing. For Angie, it’s her “always the chorus girl, never the lead” relationship with Chicago, and for Trent, it’s the fact that he went to Julliard and never shuts up about it.
Undoubtedly a theatre type, and it’s a worthwhile joke, although it can stretch thin from repeated use over the course of the film. But Rannells makes it work throughout. Trent is utterly pretentious, waxing poetically (in his mind) about his muse “Lady Theatre,” pointedly quoting The Tempest in casual conversation, and using phrases like, “If I may soliloquize.”
All the Broadway folks in the film have a high opinion of themselves, but while Dee Dee and Barry have the marquee clout to (kind of) justify it, Trent mostly just has his belief in his own staggering training and talent. This is a rather ridiculous man who genuinely thinks that Sondheim will pen a song as a personal favor to him and, when it quickly becomes clear that Sondheim will do no such thing, decides that composing it himself will be the next best thing. Yep.
For someone who’s all about his Craft, Trent is unfortunately (for him) most famous for a dumb mid-2000s sitcom he was in; a little hard to drone about Stanislavsky when people just want to hear his old catchphrase! But it actually comes in handy when the Broadway quartet arrives in Indiana on their self-serving mission to stir up good will for themselves by championing Emma’s cause. Middle America couldn’t be less impressed with Dee Dee’s Tonys or Barry’s Drama Desk, but with Trent, it’s, “Hey, it’s the guy from Talk to the Hand!” The curse of every Serious Actor with a checkered sitcom past.
On paper, there’s not a whole lot to Trent. One basic joke with a handful of funny variations, a lot of background stuff, and two big numbers: one a purposefully-cringeworthy joke of a song, the other a genuine powerhouse that’s worth the price of admission. I said in my original review of the film that “Love Thy Neighbor” is my favorite performance in the movie, and I stand by that. Rannells commits absolutely to the attitude of the number, his dancing is perfectly respectable for someone who’s not really a dancer, and he’s in fantastic voice from start to finish.
But then, “commits absolutely” is kind of the name of the game with this performance. In addition to the fantastic “Love Thy Neighbor,” he sells the hell out of every line, letting Trent’s ridiculous pretension shine through at every moment. Some of his more famous costars in the film go too broad for my tastes, feeling like someone who’s playing to the back row rather than to a camera, but Rannells never ventures into the wrong side of over-the-top. Instead, his line readings and reaction shots are consistently pitched just right, drawing laughs from lines that might not otherwise warrant them.
Rannells has spun plenty of gold from great characters over the years, but he also has a talent for elevating material that’s more middling, and that’s what’s going on here. While The Prom, for me, is an uneven film that mostly still manages to entertain, Trent’s scenes range from delightful to hilarious to showstopping.
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