musical hairspray nets pure delight
Hairspray
(PG; 117 minutes)
Just when we thought the old-fashioned musical comedy was a dying genre, here comes “Hairspray.” Based on the Broadway play that was inspired by the 1988 John Waters comedy (Waters has a clever cameo in the new film), it’s a high-energy charmer that works on every level.
The songs are snappy, the dances delirious, the performances praiseworthy. There’s even a plot that bears a message without preaching. (This is a worthy tradition: Remember the tolerance pleas built into “South Pacific” and “The King and I.”)
The central character — a tubby teenager with an incurably cute case of dance fever – is supposed to be an unknown, and 18-year-old Nikki Blonsky fills the bill and then some. Built like a fireplug, moving like a firestorm with rhythm, Blonsky portrays indomitable Tracy Turnblad, the Baltimore high-schooler who would rather dance than study. She prefers hanging with black hipsters in detention than sucking up to the smug racists in charge.
The story centers on a local teenage rock ‘n’ roll dance party show — think small-time “American Bandstand” — that features tame tunes and well-dressed kids. Michelle Pfeiffer, as the bigoted TV station manager, is an outstandingly surly back-stabber, determined to keep her daughter (Brittany Snow) in the show’s forefront while limiting the city’s black teens to occasional appearances on “Negro Day.” The year is 1962, and unfortunately this parody is not at all far-fetched.
Of course, the audience roots for Tracy to break the barrier somehow, and her triumph is as satisfying as it is unlikely.
Getting there is all the fun. The “Hairspray” Broadway score gets a lively workout here — the music almost never stops — and the songs are the catchiest to come on screen in years.
The first-class cast includes Amanda Bynes as Tracy’s best bud (and Allison Janney as the girl’s uptight mom), Christopher Walken (a song-and-dance veteran) as Tracy’s slightly loony dad (he boasts of owning “the Taj Mahal of joke shops”) and a magnificent Queen Latifah as Motormouth Maybelle, who owns an R&B record store and becomes a musically gifted civil rights leader.
The most problematic casting is also the film’s most famous star: John Travolta plays Tracy’s, um, overweight mother Edna. Following drag queen Divine in the original movie and gay icon Harvey Fierstein on Broadway, Travolta bears up adequately under a ton of fat-suit makeup and he uses his dancing experience to fine effect as the story progresses. But he’s the only one in the show determined to affect a strong “Bal-mer” accent, and it’s disconcerting. A minor quibble.
Director Adam Shankman, previously known for directing dreck such as “The Pacifier,” “The Wedding Planner” and “Cheaper by the Dozen 2,” surprises us pleasantly, sustaining a deliriously zippy pace while filling the screen with quick sight gags and colorful compositions.
The music and comedy come together without a let-up. It’s the only movie so far this summer that made us smile nonstop for two hours.
That’s why we give it an A-.
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Tags: film, review
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July 17th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
add to this that Brittany Snow is a local girl, graduate from Gaither High School!