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John Travolta and Nikki Blonsky star in Hairspray |
New star Nikki is truly here to spray
HAIRSPRAY
Directed by Adam Shankman
Certificate PG
THE word on the block is that Hairspray is something special, and the word is right. It is not so much a movie, more an experience – a wildly exuberant 1950s musical with enough energy pumping through its veins to fuel the UK’s entire grid system.
Adam Shankman takes the theme of the 1988 cult classic from John Waters and injects it with a whole new shot of adrenalin. Think Grease coupled with Saturday Night Fever and a touch of West Side Story thrown in.
Basically the story is about an ugly duckling named Tracy (Nikki Blonsky) with a heart of gold, who remains an ugly duckling even as she wins over American audiences after gate-crashing a daytime TV rock ’n’ roll show.
The Corny Collins Show is one long “teenage dance party”, with its host (James Marsden) leading the kids into routines that will blow your socks off. They’re looking for a Miss Teen Hairspray. Okay, Tracy is anything but your idea of a glamour queen – but can the girl dance!
She prances down the streets of Baltimore bringing sunshine into everyone’s life with her beaming smile and cheery attitude. And once on the dance floor, I was reminded of the song: It Must Be Jelly ’Cos Jam Don’t Shake Like That!
She doesn’t care about her size (“short and stout”) or looks, and nor do we. Plump as a spring chicken, she achieves the impossible by doing it without being sickly sweet or archly coy.
The talking point in Waters’s film was that Tracy’s doting mother Edna, a grotesquely overweight caricature, was played by a man. This time John Travolta, no less, is brave enough to pick up the gauntlet – and what a hilarious, eye-boggling job he makes of it!
Two minor caveats I have to mention. First, there is no memorable song to take away with you. Second, Leslie Dixon’s screenplay adds an element of racial tension to a breathtaking musical extravaganza which alters the mood – and not for the better – as Queen Latifah leads a protest march for ethnic integration on Corny’s show. Who needs that?
But while we’ve got unknown newcomer Nikki in our midst, aged all of 18 and working in an ice-cream parlour when she was discovered, we might just believe for two riotous hours that the world really is a better place.
Truly, a star is born. |
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