The movie follows Tracy Turnblad, a 'pleasantly plump' teenager who teaches 1962 Baltimore a thing or two about integration after landing a spot on a local TV dance show and wins the coveted 'Miss Auto Show' crown.
John Waters' appreciation for the tacky side of life is in full flower in Hairspray, a slight but often highly amusing diversion about integration, big girls' fashions and music-mad teens in 1962 Baltimore.
The shock Waters's cinema offers, then, is not transcendent, but almost reflexive, implicating the viewer in the awkward complexities of his own humanity and forcing him to either celebrate it or run screaming away.
Waters tones down his usual excesses, but his mischievous black sense of humour is still very much to the fore in this affectionate salute to Z-grade teen movies.
Not only Waters's best movie, but a crossover gesture that expands his appeal without compromising his vision one iota; Ricki Lake as the hefty young heroine is especially delightful.
Common Sense Media
December 18, 2010
A kitschy teen fantasy you can dance to.
Chicago Sun-Times
January 01, 2000
The movie is a bubble-headed series of teenage crises and crushes, alternating with historically accurate choreography of such forgotten dances as the Madison and the Roach.
While it's corny by design, Hairspray also aims to get at something truthful, about the various kinds of prejudice [...] and how youthful optimism and music made a difference [...].
The actors are best when they avoid exaggeration and remain weirdly sincere. That way, they do nothing to break the vibrant, even hallucinogenic spell of Mr. Waters's nostalgia.
Antagony & Ecstasy
September 12, 2007
The Waters film for your grandma, who will probably be only a little bit freaked out by it.
When Divine's Edna Turnblad is on-screen in the sleeveless dresses she's partial to, the movie has something like the lunacy of a W. C. Fields in drag.
