'Hairspray' sticks with success

The newest version of the film-musical stays true to the formula that made the original a hit.

By STEVE PERSALL, Times Movie Critic
Published July 19, 2007

Newcomer Nikki Blonsky, right, plays Tracy Turnblad, a girl who loves to dance, and John Travolta, left, plays her mother, Edna, in Hairspray.
	[New Line Cinema]

ADVERTISEMENT [New Line Cinema] Tampa native Brittany Snow, center, best known for her role on American Dreams, finds herself back in the ’60s in Hairspray.

Hairspray

Grade: B+

Director: Adam Shankman

Cast: Nikki Blonsky, John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken, Brittany Snow, Zac Efron, Amanda Bynes, Elijah Kelley, James Marsden, Allison Janney

Screenplay: Leslie Dixon, based on the 1988 movie and the stage musical

Rating: PG; brief profanity and smoking, suggestive content

Running time: 114 min.

* * * 

Hairspray is a musical hoot, from its opening number introducing this year's Jennifer Hudson to a finale proving John Travolta still has it on the dance floor.

Along the way, we're treated to one of this summer's more enjoyable movie experiences, occasionally flawed but always frisky.

Unlike The Producers, which also traveled from movie to Broadway and back again, Hairspray feels like it belongs onscreen, but only in the retro fashion director-choreographer Adam Shankman planned.

His vision is more Bye Bye Birdie - smart since the setting is 1962 - than the MTV-inspired styling of Moulin Rouge or Chicago's sleek psychotic fantasies.

Shankman knows dancing onscreen doesn't work if you can't see entire bodies flipping and kicking, with time allowed to enjoy their steps. He is aware that show-stopping songs onstage require clever cinematic illustration without dizzying edits. He's not always successful, but the effort is admirable.

Hairspray is always in its era yet accessible to ours, the firmest musical link between now and then since Grease.

John Waters' original story focuses on Tracy Turnblad, a Baltimore teenager played by Nikki Blonsky, a newcomer who won the role in open auditions. Underneath that teased hairdo and plump, 4-foot-10 physique is a star waiting to happen.

Her first song, Good Morning, Baltimore, reveals a ringing voice, peppy personality and defiant obesity that a lot of young women will embrace as a role model.

First we notice she's overweight. Then we realize she's beautiful.

Tracy races home from school each day to catch the Corny Collins Show, a TV dance party along the lines of American Bandstand with a cast of perfectly fit and fashioned teen dancers. She longs to be on the show but is humiliated at an audition.

Then the civil rights undercurrent Waters weaved into his story kicks in.

The only place Tracy feels accepted is in detention hall, where everyone else is African-American, using punishment time to listen to "race music" and dance in suggestive ways that would shock the white community.

Corny a toothy James Marsden sets aside an occasional show as "Negro Day" when Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah) shares control. When he sees Tracy doing steps learned from Maybelle's son Seaweed (Elijah Kelley), Corny hires her for the show. Attention paid to this newcomer irks the resident princess, Amber von Tussle (Brittany Snow), and her mother Velma (Michelle Pfeiffer), who owns the TV station.

Hairspray becomes a social protest you can dance to, an underdog story with bite. A couple of detours fall flat: Velma's attempted seduction of Tracy's father (Christopher Walken) and Maybelle's march for equality (although Latifah sounds great).

Certainly the mostly satirical song list doesn't have the top-to-bottom mastery of bona fide Broadway classics, but there's always something around the corner to make you smile.

A large part of that - literally - is casting Travolta as Tracy's mother, Edna, a role created by the transvestite Divine and owned onstage by Harvey Fierstein. Travolta doesn't employ the flamboyance of those openly gay actors, with unconvincing mincing and speaking in something close to his own voice (sometimes with an inappropriate Southern drawl). It is a stunt that doesn't quite work.

A screening audience didn't mind, drowning out Travolta's first line with murmurs about his appearance and cheering his footwork in the finale.

Hairspray has an affable goofiness making its mistakes tolerable and its smartest moves almost triumphant.

Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com.  Read his blog at blogs.tampabay.com/movies.

[Last modified July 18, 2007, 14:40:27]