Review of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) by Gary A — 27 Mar 2009

I admit I'm not a huge fan of punk rock, so maybe there's something I'm missing, but I have to tell you, I don't think Hedwig's music is really punk rock. Not most of it. It's good stuff, and it moves the plot along pretty nicely, but it really isn't punk. There are a lot of good ballads. I wouldn't mind owning the soundtrack, actually. I wasn't expecting that when I went in. Come to that, I'm not really sure what I expected. I'd heard of the movie, of course; I believe it had a run at the Capitol Theater downtown a few years back--so much stuff does. I think I thought, at one point, that it was a documentary. I mean, I really had no clue. And then I heard something about it, and I got to it in the library catalog, and I thought, you know, why not? I've watched all kinds of lousy movies because I think I should get around to them at some point. What's one more?

Hansel (Ben Mayer-Goodman)is born the day the Berlin Wall goes up. He is not a normal boy, and he knows it. His mother (Alberta Watson) knows it, too. When he is 26 and played by John Cameron Mitchell, he meets Sgt. Luther Robinson (Maurice Dean Wint). Sgt. Robinson promises to marry him and take him to America--but of course, he can't marry a man, so he sends Hansel to get . . . surgery. It's horribly botched, leaving Hansel with the angry inch of the title. His mother sends him off to America with her passport, and Hansel becomes Hedwig. Back in the US, Hedwig eventually divorces Sgt. Robinson and starts a music career, supplemented by babysitting and blow jobs. While doing the former, she meets young Tommy (Michael Pitt), teaches him about music, gives him the name of Tommy Gnosis, and takes him away from his general father. Eventually, Tommy leaves Hedwig, too, taking the music with him. Hedwig forms a band which essentially goes around stalking Tommy.

Hedwig's band, the Angry Inch, doesn't really develop as a group with personalities. They all have names, but the only one I can actually identify is Yitzakh (Miriam Shore). The rest are a crowd of generic Europunk-y, surly-looking people with instruments. Of course, they don't need to be anything else; giving them personalities would make the story too busy. Even manager Phyllis Stein (Andrea Martin) kind of takes over a little too much, though it's true that we need someone to hold Hedwig in place until the end. Hedwig is out of control. She's right in that Tommy has (figuratively at least) screwed her. He has indeed run off with her songs. But Hedwig on her own would not handle that well, and she needs Phyllis to control things until the denouement.

I think the costumes and makeup are probably the best part of the movie. The flashbacks are pretty entertaining, but really, it's Hedwig's look. Early in the film, we get Yitzakh sitting in a room full of wigs, and that tells us quite a lot about Hedwig. I think the best word for her is "flamboyant." We find out that she was pretty plain when she was living with Sgt. Robinson until he gave her a wig, and then, she was a new person. We may not always [i]like[/i] the new person, but I'm not sure that's the point.

The thing is, this [i]isn't[/i] a lousy movie. It's a little confused at times, I grant you, but it's actually pretty good. For one thing, there are many times when you can just watch the young, cute Michael Pitt, and that's nice. And the thing is, John Cameron Mitchell has a really good voice, and the songs are really good as well. And Hedwig is a sympathetic character, even when you want to hit her. Life has a tendency to happen to her, but in the end, she grabs what she wants by the parts she no longer has. She's never going to be normal, and she has come to terms with that long since. But she is, in the end, who she wants to be, and I respect that.