Hedwig and the Angry Inch

John Cameron Mitchell, USA, 2001
3 out of 4 stars

By far, the best part of this flashback-driven road film (without the road) is the music, containing all the best tendencies of rock and the musical in any number of rousing numbers. The lyrical content, as you might expect considering that the singer character is a transgendered person whose operation didn’t really go that well, is quite explicit and shocking, but it’s done with the right balance of accessibility and shock value, to the point that I think almost anyone could get behind this music with the right level of open-mindedness (which I understand is a tall order for some folks).

I’m not entirely sure, however, about the actual film this music is contained it; I think it’s good but more of a vehicle for the music than particularly great in and of itself. For one thing, I am a bit irked at how musicians are apparently considered to be the only acceptable subject matter for musicals, indicating that the convention of people breaking into song for “no reason” is really truly consigned to the dustbin of cinema, despite Joss Whedon’s best efforts. In fact, there is really only one true “musical number” here in the traditional sense, and it’s no coincidence that it was my favorite sequence.

Otherwise, most of the movie consists of one-song performances carried out at various gigs in different locations of a thinly-veiled Applebee’s knockoff; this conceit is more pragmatic than anything, as the evil of the chain restaurant is that you could plausibly be in different regions of the country even though the setting changes only superficially. These performances are entertaining, if a bit MTV-style and not exactly all that filmic. The narrative that is conveyed through the aforementioned flashbacks is compelling and develops the character fairly well, but overall, the story itself becomes increasingly underserved at the end, eventually leading, most frustratingly, to a sort of Lord of the Rings multiple ending syndrome. While I usually approve of a 90 minute running time, I feel like storyline was slashed here in order to make room for the songs. If that was the tradeoff they had to make, they chose wisely, but I would have preferred a longer film that allowed both the story and the music some room to breathe, as I feel like important questions were answered in an overly oblique manner at the end.

Source: Warner DVD
15 February, 5:10 PM PM