Expect
a few Hedwig-related posts in the
coming days. There’s plenty that I love
about this off-Broadway-show-turned-cult-film (we’re looking at the movie
today,) and the murkiness of its trans representation warrants discussion. For now, though, we’re starting simple with a
review of this bizarre but highly-enjoyable film.
What
you need to know: Hedwig is an East
German rocker currently touring America’s nationwide chain of Bilgewater
restaurants. She was born male but
underwent gender reassignment surgery in order to marry her American G.I. beau
and get to the U.S.; no time to unpack all this today, but it’s coming, believe
me. Unfortunately, the operation was
bungled, leaving her with an “angry inch” (also the name of her band) in the
nether regions. This history is rolled
out gradually over the course of her wildly-inappropriate restaurant gigs,
along with her past with rock god Tommy Gnosis, a former collaborator who won
fame from Hedwig’s music.
So,
yeah. Not something you see every
day. Hedwig
is wild and raucous, with a campy sense of humor and a flair for the outrageous. Hedwig herself is a piece of work – her
songwriting and singing talent is undeniable, and there’s no doubt that she’s
been kicked around far more than her fair share, but she’s also vain,
demanding, and vindictive. She has a
powerful need to be the prettiest, she requires nothing less than the
audience’s full attention, and she lets her grievances against Tommy make most
of her decisions for her. Still, she’s
an absolute hoot and imminently watchable, and the film follows her journey
that, at its core, is to find some peace for herself.
The
music is just phenomenally good. Penned
by Stephen Trask (who, incidentally, also composed the film score for The Station Agent,) these are genuinely gritty
rock numbers that don’t sound like
anything else you hear in musical theatre.
The songs don’t tell the story in the traditional musical sense – there
are no characters bursting into song to advance the plot. Instead, they’re generally framed as
performances, with the odd dream sequence or music-video-style tangent here and
there. They still provide a lot of insight into the story, however, because
Hedwig writes extensively from her own experiences. Through her performances, we get her feelings
on love, gender, her origins, and her ever-present sense that she has her feet
in two different camps and is never entirely one thing or the other.
In the
cast, the main attraction is John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig. He created the show, originated the role
off-Broadway, and has played it multiple times onstage since then, so there’s
no one who knows the hard-edged rock diva quite as well as him. Michael Pitt, who gave us a wonderfully
creepy Mason Verger on Hannibal,
really works as Tommy, and I just love Miriam Shor in the role of Yitzhak,
Hedwig’s backup singer and long-suffering boyfriend?/husband?/something or
other.
Warnings
Thematic
elements, sexual content (including offscreen hand jobs and oodles of
innuendo,) swearing, and drinking.
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