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Hairspray Movie Review

Hairspray is a 1988 musical comedy film directed by John Waters and starring Ricki Lake and Divine. It’s a slight in plot, but highly entertaining musical romp.

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“I watch that tramp and I’m embarrassed to be white“

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A pleasantly plump teenager teaches 1962 Baltimore a thing or two about integration after landing a spot on a local TV dance show. This movie was a major departure for John Waters. Most of his previous films were X-rated pictures with very limited appeal due to their audacious transgressiveness. This one, however, is more populist in its approach, and as a result it’s much more enjoyable.

Hairspray’s plot is a simple one. Its message against racial segregation is a great one and it isn’t too preachy in treating this issue. In fact, the extremely lightweight take on such a serious issue made this film much more engaging and charming. The problem with the plot is that it’s too basic, thin and ultimately just an excuse for fun dance sequences and comedic bits with no truly memorable or moving plot points anywhere to be found.

The characters are largely quite cartoonish and over-the-top, but this fits the over-the-top comedic intentions that Waters clearly had in mind, so ultimately it worked. The highlight for me was Divine herself. This was a rare moment in her career where she performed as a regular character so to speak, a mom to be precise.

This was an unexpected choice that paid off as seeing this big drag queen play a genuine woman was inherently hilarious. His straight line delivery was so funny. The mother-daughter relationship is the heart of the film and Ricki Lake was surprisingly strong as Tracy. It’s a shame that she quickly afterward disappeared from Hollywood when she showed so much potential here.

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Hairspray is a musical that wonderfully honors the black music of the sixties. I myself gravitate toward this music quite a bit, so I found the soundtrack both lively and strikingly memorable. The dance scenes were terrific at all times. Some of the comedic bits were also great as they were pleasingly theatrical and goofy. The more mainstream approach to storytelling by Waters really worked here, but I saw myself wanting for more in terms of storytelling and pacing as the film is thin and repetitious.