Movie Maven

I remember the first time I saw John Waters' Hairspray: I was 11 or 12 years old. Mother Maven brought home the VHS, handed it to me and said, "You need to see a John Waters film, but you're too young for Pink Flamingos. So you're going to watch this instead." It was not a request.

As much as I hate the term "pleasantly plump" this is what hero Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) is; a short round bon vivant from grungy Baltimore who wants nothing more than to dance on the "Corny Collins Show" and capture the love of crooner Link Larkin (an unnervingly hot Zac Ephron from the Disney Channel and its schlock). Blonsky, who was discovered while slaving away at a Coldstone Creamery in New York, manages to walk the fine line of charming and annoying in her performance. The rest of the characters were magnificently cast: Michelle Pheiffer, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Brittany Snow, Queen Latifah, and Allison Janney all seem to be simultaneously chewing on the pastel scenery until all that's left is the gnawed remnant of a 1960s sound stage. But one of the main stand-outs is enormously talented Elijah Kelley, who dances off with the film in his back pocket.

And then there's Travolta. Travolta is no Divine, as anyone can tell you. Divine's Edna Turnblad was a sympathetic grotesque, a woman who looked like a train wreck, but through sheer force of will managed to make herself beautiful. There was no fat suit necessary for Divine, no face prosthetics like the ones that Travolta seems to be drowning in. But as the movie went on I began to see that Travolta was having the time of his life. He recreated Edna as a curvaceous dynamo in a dumpy housewife's body, and his ultimately tender performance earned my respect and admiration.

There's an unfortunate section about half-way through the film where the energy level goes crashing down. That of course is the "message section" where Latifah leads an integration march to the song "I Know Where I've Been." What was missing here was Waters' irreverence. The march in the original Hairspray was more like a parade than a vigil, the inevitable climax of a building momentum. In this film, it was simply the predictable montage of a group of somber people with signs and candles that just made me check my watch. The film does pick up again from there, but it's a scene that really should have been dropped or re-edited.

But my very favorite moment is during the scene where Tracy goes to a local sock-hop in the hopes of getting noticed by Corny Collins. Linc is singing the vaguely sexual "Ladies Choice." As Tracy starts to dance there is a shot of Link watching her, a slow sly smile coming to his lips at the sight of her ample posterior. And as the music crescendos, he lets out a howl of pure teenage lust that out-and-out demolishes High School Musical and its poppy sentiment. He is no longer the boy next door with the plastic Disney smile. And the whole meaning behind Hairspray, whether you're talking about the Waters' film, the musical, or this rendition, is in that howl. This is a film about hope; about joy. It's a film about America in the early 60s before the bummer of Vietnam and the Kennedy and King assassinations. That howl was America lusting for something on a Saturday night.