In 1990, John Waters put out his very first film since Divine, his popular female impersonator, passed away. It didn't go over too well with most of the diehard purists as they thought John was getting too goody-goody. While they were proven wrong later with Serial Mom and Cecil B. Demented, Cry-Baby still remains the most "forgotten" John Waters movie. Does it deserve to be? Not really.
There is little doubt that after the success of Hairspray, Waters wrote Cry-Baby to cater toward the new "mainstream" fans that he acquired. However, and make no qualms about it: Cry-Baby is not mainstream. In fact, it makes fun of the "straights" and glorifies the delinquents (kind of like Female Trouble did). If anything, this is a prime parody of the movie Grease. While not as wickedly funny as John's other movies, it still never fails to amuse. The premise is very simple: Johnny Depp plays a "drape" that causes all the girls to go wild by shedding a single tear. He ends up falling in love with a beautiful "square", much to her uptight family's dismay. As you can imagine, chaos ensues.
Not John's best writing work, Cry-Baby relies on a lot of "square vs. drape" clichés to get its laughs. While it works, I also know John is capable of writing a wider variety of humor. However, what is lacking in the writing is made up with chemistry (somewhat, at least). The casting was a great choice (Johnny Depp as a teen delinquent was marvelous). The drape humor was very well done. The film is a very energetic flick and the music was wonderful. All in all, it's a pleasing experience. It just misses something. Most likely, that something was Divine.
Sadly, I can't really recommend this film to a lot of John Waters fans as they will find it forgettable and uninteresting compared to the much superior Hairspray. However, if you are solely a fan of later Waters work, you should enjoy this fun little romp of a movie. I'm a Waters progressionist. I realize that he can't do another Pink Flamingos and therefore I am a fan of his continuously changing work. If you're like me, you should enjoy this film too. Light and funny, my best recommendation would be to enjoy this film for exactly what it is.
|
