The Frame

Here’s what I wrote in my movie-watching file immediately after seeing Hairspray: “Infectious fun, but I also feel like it’s making me cynical, by a weird twist of reverse psychology. I think what I’m reaching for is that it’s calculating and manipulative and predictable, but saying that feels like raining on some kid’s birthday.” I still feel sort of that way. It was pretty much impossible not to enjoy it while I was watching it, but it took me a while to get rid of the saccharine aftertaste. Travolta is a joke, and Walken doesn’t help him out much. Blonsky, of course, put her all into it, and it’s worth watching for her and Michelle Pfeiffer, who’s delightfully wicked. The music is good, but I wish the dancing had been better. And I’m sorry, I don’t normally mind populism, but Adam Shankman is aggressively populist with no more vision than trying to please as many people as he can and offend as few as possible. There’s no art and little of interest in that, as was blatantly obvious in his choreography for So You Think You Can Dance last summer, which paled so much in comparison to Mia Michaels and Wade Robson that it’s best if we just try to forget it. I was, however, impressed by the racial issues addressed, something I wasn’t expecting. So I’ll bump my rating up a notch for that, and for Queen Latifah’s nuanced performance in a movie which is anything but nuanced.
Above Average