MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG

This is as good as filmed musical theater gets. Stephen Sondheim's score is gorgeous, the story is genuinely bittersweet, and Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez all deliver excellent performances in a production that earned four Tony Awards. The film's message is one Scripture would affirm without hesitation: fame and fortune are empty without the love of family and friends.

But this is not family fare. The story runs on marital infidelity — a man's affair unravels both his marriage and his closest friendships — and the language is rough, with over 20 obscenities including six strong profanities. Two scenes show characters using cocaine and marijuana, and drinking runs through the party scenes, including one bout of drunkenness.

If you're an adult who loves musical theater and can watch a story about broken loyalty without it becoming your own temptation, this one rewards you richly. If you're picking a movie for your kids, keep looking. Bottom line: worth seeing, but strictly for grown-ups.

The film opens at the end — a 1977 party celebrating Frank, now a major Hollywood player. His old friend Mary calls him out for how success has changed him, and for the broken friendship and marriages he's left behind. From there, the story rolls backward through the decades, tracing how three friends — Frank, Charley, and Mary — got from a hopeful beginning to this fractured place.

Four stars, and they're earned. This filmed production captures a genuinely acclaimed Broadway revival — the songs are beautiful, the reverse-chronology structure gives the story real emotional weight, and the three leads perform with skill and feeling. What started as a 1981 flop has grown into one of Sondheim's most celebrated works, and this production shows why: it's polished, moving, and well-crafted from top to bottom. There's little to fault here on craft alone — this is simply strong musical filmmaking.

At its heart, this is a moral story, and a clear-eyed one. The film traces exactly what happens when a man chases fame and fortune at the expense of the people who loved him first — his marriages collapse, his oldest friendship breaks, and by the story's end (which the film shows us first), he's surrounded by success and starved of the relationships that actually sustained him. That's not a subtle message, and it's not a false one. Scripture says the same thing more plainly: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36).

The film doesn't sanitize how that happens. Frank's infidelity is central to the plot — an affair that breaks his marriage and, eventually, his friendships — and the story doesn't flinch from showing dysfunction along the way. But the story never presents that infidelity as harmless or the fame as worth its cost; the whole shape of the narrative is an argument against it, told in reverse so the audience feels the loss before they understand the choices that caused it.

The longing underneath all of this — for friendship that lasts, for a life that means something beyond applause — is one the gospel answers directly. Frank spends decades discovering that success without love is empty. Scripture puts the choice before us from the start: "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" (Matthew 16:26).

This is a beautifully made musical with a genuinely moral heart — and it earns its caution rating honestly, with real infidelity, real drug use, and real profanity on screen. Adults who can watch that honestly and still hear the film's warning about fame's emptiness will find it well worth their time. Our answer, the same one we opened with: worth the trip — adults only. Choosing something for the whole family instead? Start with our latest family-friendly picks.