Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake...yes, Ricki Lake) is an overweight teenager in Baltimore. She loves dancing, the "Corny Collins Show" (a low-rent "American Bandstand"), and spraying her hair up to stratospheric heights. Her parents, the odd couple of Jerry Stiller and Divine, barely tolerate her "hair-hopping" ways. One day, however, she manages to win an audition to be on the show, to the horror of the awful white-bread Amber (Colleen Fitzpatrick) and her unspeakable parents (Sonny Bono and Debbie Harry). Tracy's rise coincides with politics, as integration becomes an issue in this most northern of southern cities.
Anyway, to simplify, right prevails, integration reigns, Tracy is crowned Miss Auto Show, and Debbie Harry's hair explodes (in that order).
It's hard to explain why I like this movie so much. I never have been fond of pre-Beatles pop music, but the music presented here is done so with such conviction it its quality, that one can't help but like it. The dancing is fun to watch (the kids in this movie really know how to move), and it's great looking out for the odd celebrity cameo, like Ric Ocasek and Pia Zadora as a pair of beatniks.
This is Divine's last film, and he is wonderful here: a world-weary housewife who deep down, loves her daughter above all else, and a brief second role as a bigoted television executive. Ricki Lake charms as Tracy. Why she was so eager to lose weight is beyond me. She is far more attractive overweight.
There are numerous oddball moments and characters in this film: the bizarre psychiatrist played by Waters himself, black female DJ Motormouth Maybelle played by the inimitable Ruth Brown. A brief love scene in an alley interrupted by Tracy kicking a rat at her feet. Debbie Harry popping a zit on her daughter's chin.
In short, this is not your parent's coming-of-age film. This is the definitive movie on teens in Baltimore in 1962 (not counting any films by Barry Levinson).
Four stars
Copyright 1997 by Dale G. Abersold
