In the early 1900s Oklahoma Territory, a man named Curly is riding his horse through cornfields singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin.” He approaches a house where an older middle-aged woman named Eller is sitting. Then he greets her.

Shortly after, a young woman named Laurey, who is Eller’s niece, comes out with her bird in its cage. She and Curly then have a romantic moment together.

However, because Curly had taken too long to ask Laurey out to the upcoming box social, she declines the request. Instead, she decides to go to the event with this other guy, Jud.

Meanwhile, a man named Will decides to ask Annie out to the social. Annie accepts the invite, but later acknowledges that she has trouble saying no in the song, “I Cain’t Say No.”

At some point, a bubbly, young woman named Gertie is flirting with Curly. Poor Laurey is now heartbroken. Not only that, but she also declines Curly’s request to take her to the box social again. But that is because she is worried about how Jud will react.

Angry, Curly confronts Jud. The 2 even have a gunfight together.

That night, Laurey dreams that she marries Curly. Unfortunately, it turns into a nightmare where Jud kills him.

At the box social everyone is dancing and having fun. However, Annie’s father says insensitive things about the cowboys. This causes everybody to break out into fights.

The next day at the lady’s picnic, there is an auction being held. A guy named Ali Hakim wins. That way will can have the $50 he needs to marry Annie.

But stakes rise from that point on. How will all of this end?

Since I saw a live high school performance of this film at age 10 and sang some of the songs with my voice teacher, I knew some of the content already. Because of that, the story did keep me engaged throughout it.

However, there were a few exceptions of scenes that I fast-forwarded because they were boring. And that was mainly due to the low levels of tension.

Despite enjoying the story, I will admit that it was very hard to understand. It felt like a bunch of vignettes rather than a linear sequence with the right amount of subplots to support it. I actually used Wikipedia to help guide me write most of the narrative above. Of course, all words are my own.

I know that’s not the case. But I do feel that even the dialogue did little to make the plot clearer.

On the bright side, I enjoyed the songs and dance choreographies. I would never have expected the number, “Many a New Day” to be treated like a ballet, where Laurey and a bunch of other young women dance like ballerinas.

Since I sang that song and a few others with my voice teacher, I appreciated understanding the context behind them by watching the moments in which they were sung.

Even though Curly and Laurey’s relationship was nowhere near perfect, I still considered it sweet. But I do wish the other men were more distinguishable.

Too many of them had short dark hair. When characters or extras look too similar, it’s harder to tell them apart. If only they had men with blonde or red hair, facial hair, different body types and heights, and so forth. They had a few old men, including one with a mustache. Yet that was really it.

But overall, more of the movie kept my interest than did not. So, I still enjoyed Oklahoma!

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.