Integrated cast brings perfect balance to ‘Hairspray' adaptation
Integrated cast brings perfect balance to 'Hairspray' adaptation

By Matthew Price

Published: July 20, 2007

Tracy Turnblad just wants to sing and dance in "Hairspray,” a film musical based on the 2004 Broadway musical that was based on the 1988 John Waters film.

Tracy (Nikki Blonsky) is a plus-size girl in 1962 Baltimore who religiously tunes in to the "Corny Collins Show.” Corny (James Marsden) hosts a teen dance show starring popular teens Link Larkin (Zac Efron) and Amber Von Tussle (Brittany Snow).

Tracy is encouraged to try out for the show by her father, Wilbur (Christopher Walken), despite the misgivings of her mother, Edna (John Travolta).

Once on the show, Tracy becomes an audience favorite. But when she suggests integrating the "Corny Collins Show,” Amber's mother, station manager Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer), strongly opposes it.

The black teens are allowed one day a month to dance on Corny's show — hosted on those days by Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah). Tracy thinks they deserve to be part of the show, so she goes on an integration march — and finds herself on the wrong side of the law.

Adam Shankman ("Bringing Down the House”) puts together an excellently choreographed production that rarely slows. The singing and dancing are top-notch, and Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad is a brilliant discovery.

The hardest part of the film is accepting Travolta as a woman. However, Travolta's not playing the role for laughs. And he certainly brings the appropriate singing and dancing chops to the role, particularly in a duet with Christopher Walken extended from the Broadway show version.

Efron ("High School Musical”) will draw in younger viewers with his heartthrob role, but the cast is excellent across the board. Amanda Bynes ("Penny Pingleton”) and Elijah Kelley ("Seaweed”) provide chemistry as friends of Tracy's who become an interracial high school couple.

This colorful, retro film celebrates the outsider in everyone with an adaptation that misses nary a note.

— Matthew Price

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