Movie Review: Hairspray

By Colin MacLean Jul 15, 2007, 10:46 GMT

As per the movie that inspired the stage show, the musical will center on the zaftig Tracy Turnblad as she changes from an outsider to celebrity IT girl. ...more

Hairspray bursts on the screen with an exuberant reading of the song “Good Morning Baltimore,” delivered by an 18 year-old bouncing ball of buoyant pep and pepper, Nikki Blonsky.

If the film never quite rises to those giddy heights again, it doesn’t mean that Hairspray isn’t one of the best entertainments of the summer.

The film is based on one of John Waters’ most accessible movies - a 1988 take on his memories of growing up in ‘60’s Baltimore. (Waters shows up in a cameo as a street flasher).

At the same time, the first stirrings of black power were being felt. 

Waters’ film was turned into a Tony-award winning Broadway musical in 2002. The show is still running in New York and packin’ them in on the road.

Hairspray is a film about entitlement – a celebration of the joy of being different.  By talent and determination, the buxom Tracy Turnblad demands to be taken seriously even as the Afro-Americans are demanding integration.

The ultimate teen goal is to appear as a dancer on “The Corny Collins (James Marsden - all smarm, teeth and hair) Show.”

Tracy is sent to the detention room (for “inappropriate hair height”) where she meets the “Negro” students and learns their moves. She tries them out for the TV show auditions and wipes everyone else out.

All much to the horror of Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer), who produces the show and wants her blond, bland daughter (Brittany Snow) to win the Miss Teen Hairspray contest. Velma is also on a quest to wipe out “Negro day,” the one day in the month when blacks appear on the show. 

Meanwhile, Tracy persuades her zaftig mother, Edna (John Travolta – unrecognizable in a fat suit), to leave the house for the first time in years to join in her success.

Mac Shaiman and lyricist Scott Wittman, have written a light, often hilarious and highly tuneful R&B, Top 40, bubbelgum and Gospel score, full of good humour and magnetic high spirits. It gracefully alludes to ‘60’s pop but will have modern viewers a-tap-tap-tapin’ their feet. 

The irrepressible Blonsky, a real find, dominates the movie, her effervescent personality leaping right off the screen. Pfeiffer is amusingly brittle. Zac Efron, an alumnus of the TV hit “High School Musical,” is animated, talented and drop dead gorgeous. He plays Linc, Tracy’s high school heartthrob. A spirited singing-dancing African-American actor named Elijah Kelley, playing a character called Seaweed, runs off with every scene he’s in.  

Actually, the older stars of the film fare the worst. Travolta is OK, letting the fat suit do most of his acting. Christopher Walken underplays the role of Tracy’s father to the point where he disappears. Queen Letifah gets to deliver a rousing anthem (“I Know Where I’ve Been”) that will lift you from your chair but otherwise her Motormouth Maybelle is strangely subdued.

Director-choreographer Adam Shankman follows a cinematic dance dictum that goes all the way back to Fred Astaire, who always insisted that the whole body be shown. Shankman’s dances are compulsively energetic and the performers are featured. He avoids the frenetic MTV-style of shooting and editing that turns the camera into a player. 

Harispray may go a bit soft in the middle but the climax is right back up there. Boisterous and old-fashioned, this is a film considerably more entertaining than, say, the self-conscious Dreamgirls with its pretentious, overblown production values.

Hairspray is bright and simple. A tangy, feel-good movie. It certainly deserves to find its own audience and not get lost in a summer full of spiders, pirates and boy wizards.

Movie opens wide USA and UK July 20. Rated: PG in both USA and UK