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Musicals make my skin crawl, and Moulin Rouge made me hate that stupid genre even more than I already did. So I approached Hedwig and the Angry Inch with great trepidation, even though the film had already garnered accolades from numerous festivals around the world, including the Audience and Director's Awards at Sundance. But Dancer in the Dark took home the top trophies at Cannes, so that shows you how much festival folks know about musicals.
Rouge was everything Hedwig is not: annoying, pretentious, spastic and more about the director than the characters. Not only is it the best musical I've ever seen, it's the best new film I've seen so far this year (Apocalypse Now Redux doesn't count). Hedwig's songs stuck with me for days, and somebody will literally have to cause me bodily harm to harvest the soundtrack from my CD player.
Granted, I'm not ready to run out to the store to buy The Sound of Music, but I am ready to lavish writer/director/star John Cameron Mitchell with heaps and heaps of over-the-top praise. He stars as the eponymous Hedwig, who we first see performing with his band (The Angry Inch) at a St Louis restaurant before a handful of groupies and several dozen surprised dinner patrons. They're just not the typical entertainment you'd expect to see at a family eatery, and Hedwig's shocking lyrics about his crazy adventures are enough to redden even the most jaded cheeks.
Hedwig, we learn, is in the midst of a lawsuit pitting himself against Rolling Stone Artist of the Year and MTV darling Tommy Gnosis (Michael Pitt, Dawson's Creek). The two were, at one time, in a very close relationship that saw Hedwig pen the songs that made Tommy a star. Not only did Tommy kick Hedwig to the curb, he didn't credit him on his multi-platinum album, either. Hedwig's manager, Phyllis Stein (SCTV's Andrea Martin), has the band following Tommy's sold-out tour around the country, but instead of playing to packed arenas, they're stuck in a chain of Bilgewater's seafood restaurants.
As Hedwig's tour continues, his songs (and occasional narration) explain his life's story from his origin in East Germany through a botched sex change operation (hence the title) prompted by a black sugar daddy (literally) and a move to the United States. The film is full of animation snippets (a la Pink Floyd The Wall) that illustrate Hedwig's desire to find the perfect life-mate and become a complete being. He likens himself to the old, divided Germany - incomplete and stuck in limbo between male and female.
Cameron, who could be Rachel Griffiths' twin brother, is completely believable in this role, and some will be floored to learn he isn't really a cross-dressing East German with a tiny lump of flesh where his penis used to be. Apparently, the inspiration for the film was a German babysitter Cameron knew when he was a teenager in Kansas. Years later, he created the off-Broadway play that eventually became this film. Even though he performed as Hedwig for several years on stage, Cameron's performance is still amazing, and his skills as a director should be commended, as well.
Hedwig could become America's newest sing-a-long cult musical, in the vein of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's goofy and sincere, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a film that is both to the degree that Hedwig is. And the music, which was written by Stephen Trask, is some of the best stuff you'll hear this year, assuming you dig the whole T.Rex/Bowie/Iggy Pop/Lou Reed thing (Bob Mould plays lead guitar on each number).
1:35 - R for sexual content and language
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