Cry-Baby

Having gone from underground schlock cinema to mainstream success, John Waters has been revered and lauded for his daring tackling of cinema as much as his dismantling of good taste. Perhaps one of his more commercially appealing works would have to be Cry-Baby, set and shot in Ellicott City, Maryland. Despite failing at the box office on its original spring 1990 release, the film has become a cult classic enough to spawn a Tony award winning Broadway musical spinoff. Detailing the lives of delinquent teenagers interacting with each other in 1950s Baltimore, the film could be a time capsule in its own right.

The film centers around two teens named "Cry-Baby" Walker (Johnny Depp), and Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane), who disturb Baltimore society by breaking the subculture taboos, while also having to overcome their affectionate love and how their actions affect the town. From the start, the basis of the film's social commentary is the difference in classes, with Walker's group being labeled as drapes and Allison's group being labeled as squares. In depicting the squares as social elites and the drapes as white trash rednecks, the film could have easily gone in a sourly dark direction. Thankfully, Waters knows how to execute the fun out of a concept like this and turn it into a full blown campy musical. By exaggerating the stereotypes of '50s rock culture, the film subverts specific tropes, such as Cry Baby being the tough motorcyclist with a heart of gold and Allison's square boyfriend Baldwin being a monster disguised as a charming gentleman. Of course, the chemistry between Cry Baby and Allison is cute in its own right, but the sexual tension between them is what brings audiences back for more.

However, what arguably makes the movie a lot more engaging are the supporting characters. Although mostly derived from their basic traits, Cry Baby's gang/family give out the best laughs in the whole movie. Thanks to an all star cast like Ricki Lake as Cry Baby's boisterous pregnant sister Pepper, Susan Tyrell as Cry Baby's eccentric grandmother Ramona Rickettes, Iggy Pop as Cry Baby's hysterical uncle Belvedere, Traci Lords as the fed up hot Wanda Woodward, Kim McGuire as the ugly clown Mona "Hatchet Face" Malnorowski, etc, the characters serve the story enough with some heavily sprinkled cartoony gags to boot. Even for a film like this, it allows for the occasional piece of drama to spew out with a dynamic split between the drapes and squares without going too far in the pathos department. The pacing is very fast paced, almost never stopping to take a breath, which is exactly what a movie as nutty as this needs. While it doesn't delve into the prejudice happening in Baltimore of the past as deeply as the likes of Hairspray, it's one heck of a comedic thrill ride.

As for the musical highlights, the soundtrack consists of already existing rock hip hop songs from the 50s and songs intended for the movie alone. Since the film barely lets two minutes go by without a musical number, it practically tells the story through the soundtrack, emphasizing the camp punk culture of yesteryear still beloved by Baltimorians today. The choreography alone is incredible, paying tribute to early rock cinema and the outlandishly bold musical numbers they would boast to move the story along. Some of the songs are so poignant that even a single entitled Teardrops Are Falling emphasize why our titular character is called Cry Baby from the start On top of that, the production design and specific editing choices recreate the look of a comically silly 50s feature brought into the early 1990s (most likely why the movie wasn't a hit at the time). Perhaps in bringing his influences in campy rock & roll cinema into the mainstream three decades after the fact was more of a curse on Waters' part, but looking back now, this film delivers on that for all to cherish from that time period alone.

So even if its outlandishly cartoony tone won't please everyone in the world, Cry Baby remains a delightfully infectious musical ode to the teen rebel genre. As both a tribute and a lampoon of the types of films that inspired it, there's a lot to recommend to audiences who are yet to check it out. If you're discovering the later mainstream works of John Waters, this might be a really good place to start, at least before Hairspray and Serial Mom. Lastly, regardless of what you think of Johnny Depp and Amy Locane nowadays, this film will forever remain a cult classic in spite of them more so because of them.