HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH

2001

This film adaptation of the campy off-Broadway stage hit and rock musical, has already achieved cult status, having just won the Audience Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival. John Cameron Mitchell, its writer and director, reprises his role as the leading character Hedwig, an East German male-to-female transsexual whose rock-and-roll musical compositions (and affections) are stolen by an ambitious young protege. Basically, this is a rock concert with a bizarre story line appended to it. Much of the music is pretty good, and the lyrics are now understandable, as they weren't in the stage version with the decibels at a deafening level. It might have been better had the STORY not been understandable, as it has to do with a sex-change operation gone wrong. Hence, the "angry inch" of the title! I have to say something about the audience at this premiere. Many of them were obsessed fanatics, who had seen the stage musical dozens of times. One grotesque creature had Hedwig pictures tattoed all over her visible body parts (and God knows where else!) She said that she had seen the musical 112 times. I almost went into shock! They all sang along with the songs; waved their arms at "appropriate" times; and laughed hysterically at nothing. I felt like a rabbi at a Nazi rally!!!

2 Stars

NJB