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Written by Robert W. Butler, MCT
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Thursday, 19 July 2007 |
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 ___
HAIRSPRAY
3 ½ stars
Director: Adam Shankman
Cast: Nikki Blonsky, John Travolta, Queen Latifah, Michelle Pfeiffer, Amanda Bynes, Christopher Walken.
Rated: PG for language, some suggestive content and momentary teen smoking.
Running time: 1:47
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Exploding with energy, laughter, great dancing, knockout music and (mostly) breakneck pacing, "Hairspray" is the most enjoyable, insightful treatise on race in America since The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
That might sound like hyperbole — until you've seen it.
The movie musical, based on the Broadway hit that was adapted from John Waters' non-musical 1988 film, will leave audiences stranded between stomach-aching laughter and a huge lump in the throat. It's that good.
Of course it has good source material. Waters' original film cannily indicted Eisenhower-era race relations and right-wing prudery while exalting freedom, equality and participatory democracy, all wrapped up in a cheesy, good-natured teen comedy.
To that sturdy framework Broadway songwriter Marc Shaiman added a score of hummable tunes that deliciously parody the styles of early rock 'n' roll.
And now it all has been splashed across the big screen by Adam Shankman, a filmmaker whose credits hardly inspire confidence — "The Wedding Planner"? "Cheaper by the Dozen 2"? — but who here directs and choreographs a big-budget musical with the assurance and economy of a Hollywood great like Stanley Donen.
In fact, Shankman immediately becomes the frontrunner in next winter's Oscar race for best director.
Set in Baltimore in 1962, "Hairspray" follows the fortunes of Tracy Turnblad (newcomer Nikki Blonsky, who grabs the film with her first appearance and never lets go). Tracy is a big-haired, big-boned (as they used to politely put it) teen whose dream is to become one of the cool kids dancing every weekday afternoon on "The Corny Collins Show," an "American Bandstand" clone airing on a local TV station.
Tracy's ambitions aren't supported by her laundress mother Edna (John Travolta in drag), a plus-sized matron so self-conscious about her weight that she hasn't left the house in 20 years. Wise to the cruel ways of the world, Edna doesn't want her daughter to have to face the rejection certain to come her way.
That rejection is embodied by TV station manager Velma Von Tassle (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her daughter Amber (Brittany Snow), both skinny, blonde and contemptuous of anyone who doesn't meet their white-bread standards of glamour.
A one-time beauty queen who slept her way to the title of Miss Baltimore Crabs, Velma rules the Corny Collins Show with a velvet fist. She doesn't like fat people or overenthusiastic dancing (Tracy represents both) and especially not black people — she's lobbying to get rid of "Negro Day," the one time when African-American kids can appear on the show.
The screenplay (credited to Leslie Dixon, although much has been lifted directly from the Waters' film and the stage production) sets numerous roadblocks in Tracy's path, all of which she blithely obliterates with her enthusiasm, good-heartedness and natural talent.
The movie is crawling with juicy characters and performances:
Christopher Walken is a hoot as Tracy's supportive dad, Wilbur, who runs a novelty and joke shop.
Zac Efron ("High School Musical") is dead-on as the spit-curled Link Larkin, the hottest guy on the show and the boy Tracy loves from afar.
Amanda Bynes is all wide-eyed innocence as Tracy's lollipop-sucking pal Penny ... until she falls for a black kid named Seaweed (Elijah Kelley, who possesses gravity-defying dance moves that must be seen to be believed). Their romance turns Penny's religious tract-waving mother (Allison Janney) apoplectic.
Queen Latifah is perfectly cast as Motormouth Maybelle, whose shop filled with "race music" records provides a place where black and white kids can mix.
Taylor Parks plays Seaweed's younger sister, Little Inez, who can belt a song like Ma Rainey.
James Marsden (late of the "X-Men" franchise) reveals heretofore hidden singing and dancing talent as the smarmy-but-charismatic Corny Collins.
Oh ... and look for John Waters' appearance in the opening number, "Good Morning, Baltimore." It's one of the best cameos in movie history.
A big questions going into the film was how Travolta would handle the drag role of Edna. The answer is that he successfully puts his own spin on it.
Edna was first played by the aggressively grotesque female impersonator Divine. But Travolta isn't into impersonation here — he's playing Edna straight, viewing her as a once-beautiful woman now trapped in a bad case of middle-aged spread.
What's weird is that by movie's end we can see that beauty beneath the prosthetics.
The real star of the show, though, is Blonsky, a singing and dancing dervish bubbling over with life. With a voice that's equally suited to Broadway ballads and vintage rock and possessing dance moves that are both funny and seductive, Blonsky takes charge of the film like someone who's been doing this all her life. Hard to believe she had never performed professionally before getting this gig.
I can't call "Hairspray" perfect. Things bog down a bit at the two-thirds point, especially in a passage when Pfeiffer's Velma tries to seduce Walken's Wilbur and Edna is consumed by jealousy and hurt.
But that aside, the film moves like a rocket, pausing only long enough to accommodate the laughs generated by the wickedly subversive dialogue, situations and regular eruptions of cultural nostalgia.
"Hairspray" is more fun than anything we've seen at the multiplex so far this year. And unlike most of this summer's blockbusters, it's got something on its mind. | Only registered users can write comments.
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