Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch is an offensive, abrasive, sexually-charged androgynous punk-rock anger anthem for the cheated, abused, misused wig-wearing makeup consumer/prostitute who feels particularly down that day.
Oh yeah, and it’s for the rest of us, too.
Hedwig (2001) begins with a punk-rock band playing Bilgewaters, a tacky buffet restaurant. Not long after this, we find Hedwig is in limbo trying to define herself and has anchored herself in music. In a flashback to Cold War Berlin, we have Hansel, a young boy with an American G.I. father (there are hints that he molests young Hansel) and a German mother. In a rather amusing scene, Hansel has to listen to American radio with his head in the oven so his mother doesn’t have to hear it, meaning he grows up in a box of sound. When Hansel grows older, he happens to meet Luther, an American soldier, who falls far Hansel’s nude body. Pledging to marry Hansel, Luther and Hansel’s mother convince him to escape communist Berlin by becoming Hedwig and having sex-change surgery. However, as told in the song “Angry Inch,” something goes horribly wrong in the surgery, giving him… well… an inch.
From there, we follow Hedwig to Junction City, Kansas, where Luther leaves Hedwig (we assume for another man). Right afterward, Hedwig watches the Berlin Wall fall on TV. Having been swept out of his gray life in Germany, Hedwig finds herself afloat – between genders, between homes, between lives.
With the song “Wig in a Box,” Hedwig finds herself adopting a new identity and using what she knows – music – as her respite and career. Along the way, she picks up Yitzhak, whom we find out is Hedwig’s secondary love interest, and the rest of the Angry Inch. The story’s main conflict is between the ultra conservative Tommy Gnosis, Hedwig’s prodigy, whom she believes is her soulmate, and the betrayal of him leaving her when he finds out her true sex, stealing her songs, and becoming famous without even a credit to Hedwig. This sparks her following him across the nation, trying to confront him to get her life, love, and identity back. The movie is wild and fun, but also melancholy and abstract, giving an impression of a metaphysical Wizard of Oz with internal unification being the goal. It truly is a spectacular movie, with glam, excess, and sex to spare.
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April 6, 2007 at 2:02 am
snookju
Good writing, but you have done more summary here than critique. It is nice to know what the movie is about, but narrative and critical analysis aren’t the same thing. One has a place in the other, and here it has outgrown that space. Give us more interpretation, less play-by-play.
Another thing that distracts from this review is that, as in your earlier posts, your sentences lean towards complexity. Every now and than, we readers need breaks from qualifiers and clauses to keep the energy going.
Don’t be discouraged, though. You have a beautiful mind for detail that will serve you well in the role-playing. You just need to dumb it down some for the more analytical types who are likely to read criticism.
April 6, 2007 at 2:50 am
W.E.B. Adamant
My point this time was not to criticize but to give an honest to goodness summary of the high points of the movie. I realize there’s no reasoning as to why I like it, but I found it hard to stop summarizing and give a bias.
Now I’m talking about what I would have liked to do with the review. Regardless. it’s here now.
April 7, 2007 at 6:44 pm
malichka
I loved the review: good job on the synopsis, vocabulary and imagery!
April 9, 2007 at 12:19 am
rawra
Yay! I’m so glad you picked this. I haven’t seen it, but I have been wanting to, and your post just made me that much more excited to see it!
April 10, 2007 at 1:14 am
grubbenator
Good job. At first I thought this was an album and got kind of confused but then I realized what was going on.
April 10, 2007 at 3:06 am
thesimmons
+200 pts to you for this review.
April 19, 2007 at 9:45 pm
ularaannepage
It sounds like a great movie, but your review was a little choppy in the beginning. I really liked your last couple of paragraphs.
April 24, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Sarah
Oh I remember the day you introduced me to this movie. Things were never quite the same. I loved your summary, but perhaps because I reminisced quite thoroughly while reading it. Nonetheless, I see Justin’s point. Do you seem to be lacking in some analysis. But I love your complex sentences, and I find the whole piece splendid.