Hairspray Review
2007-08-02
Sergio Mims
Hairspray -- a wildly exuberant, cheerfully optimistic, good old fashioned "feel good" movie -- is a joyous surprise. It's the kind of movie that Hollywood has totally forgotten how to make. It wears its heart on its sleeve, refusing to satirize or subvert the musical genre. Instead Hairspray embraces the genre with an unbridled love and respect that resonates in every frame. Based on the 2002 hit Broadway play which was a musicalversion of cult film director John Waters' 1988 film of the same title, Hairspray harks back visually and in spirit to the vibrant MGM classics of the 1950's such as American in Paris, TheBandwagon, It's Always Fair Weather and Silk Stockings. The movie tries, and, for the most part, succeeds in replicating the same luxuriant widescreen photography, excessive art direction, expansive musical numbers and energetic dance sequences that were a staple of those classic movies.
Set in 1962 in a segregated Baltimore when there was a whiff of social change in the air, the film tells thestory of Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) a rotund, impossibly cheerful high schooler with a homebound overweight mother, Edna (John Travolta) and a perpetually upbeat father who owns a neighborhood joke and novelty shop (Christopher Walken). Along with her friend Penny (Amanda Bynes), Tracy's greatpassion is a local American Bandstand knock off, "The Corny Collins Show," run by a racist and ruthless stationmanager (Michelle Pfeiffer) who barely tolerates the show's once-a-month "Negro Day" hosted by record shop owner Motormouth Maybelle (played by Queen Latifah as a woman wise to, but undaunted by the vagaries and consequences of racism.)
Tracy finally becomes a regular dancer on the show, due in no small part to her effervescence and her ability to shake a groove thing. The fact that she is atypical of the skinny, self-absorbed debutants who are spotlighted weekly is lost on Corny Collins, who has wanted to make radical changes in his show for quite some time. Tracy becomes a local celebrity, basking in the limelight without a hint of arrogance or affectation, and a youthful desire to bring everyone around her along for the ride. That includes her new-found black friends, and this is where the ride gets a little rocky. In a brassy bit of revisionist history, the movie puts Tracy at the front of Baltimore's first attempt at integration ("You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna integrate that show!"), a civil rights crusader in spite of the reluctance of her segregated pals. More authentic was the reaction of Edna, who wants to stay as far away as possible from the trouble she knows could come from this. Edna gets caught up in the march on the station while she is trying to convince Tracy that the whole thing is a really bad idea and she should come along home now. The look of discomfort on her face as Tracy and the others scoop her up in the frenzy is pure cinema verite. Jaw tightening, too, is the first time Tracy is sent to detention, a rocking scene, to be sure, but a detention populated only by the black kids in the school. In spite of those potentially off-putting moments, Hairspray manages to deftly negotiate the race issue, ultimately making the point of acceptance of differences, whether those differences be of size or race. With all this frenetic energy it's no surprise that Hairspray moves along like quicksilver.
Director Adam Shankman, previously responsible for such crummy films as Bringing Down the House, and The Pacifier, proves that he actually has talent and can direct a film. Shankman puts his previous experience as a choreographer to exceptional use in his irrepressibly clever dance scenes. Though the film may have one too many songs and a repetitive pattern creeps in the film's final scenes, one cannot deny that it's totally fun.
Blonsky, in her first film role, is buoyant and instantly likable as Tracy and you root for her all the way, while Pfeiffer is appropriately villainous. Travolta playing the role of her mother, (a role that, in both the Broadway and the Waters version were acted by men in drag), is simply terrific as Edna. Wisely not camping it up, Travolta plays it straight and gives a one of the best performances of his career drawing Edna as a real, complex woman hurt from life and disappointments who learns to like who she is. Special praise, too, due for newcomer Elijah Kelly (Seaweed), an incredible dancer with a great set of pipes who energizes the screen every minute he is on.
Musicals, with the exception of westerns, are the hardest of film genres to pull off. For them to work not only demands talent and a sense of what works, but an understanding andrespect for the genre. Hairspray works on every level because the filmmakers and the actors give, and receive, that respect.
(Sergio Mims writes about film and film culture for ebonyjet.com)
