One Boy, One Tear

[setsuled]

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Teenagers rebelling against the social order and the demented adults trying to put them down all attract the ironic sympathy of the filmmaker in 1990's Cry-Baby. I don't know if it's John Waters' best movie but maybe it's his most appreciable, coming at a transition period from his wilder early films into his attempts at somewhat more mainstream fare. He's helped immensely by Johnny Depp who makes the titular Cry-Baby a character the audience can feel more than ironic affection for.

It's an affectionate parody of '50s delinquent films. Depp's Cry-Baby is cut from the same cloth as James Dean and young Marlon Brando characters but he's in a movie world that is closer to cheap knock-offs of those movies. The supporting cast including Traci Lords and Ricki Lake recall things more like Girls Town and The Beatniks.

The story's just an excuse for musical numbers and equally ornamental campy dialogue. Allison (Amy Locane) is the good girl from a good family who can't help being attracted to the low life Cry-Baby (Depp). Waters adores Cry-Baby's trashy relatives, he adores the preppy guys who burn Cry-Baby's prized motorcycle, he adores how sensitive Cry-Baby is about it. I suppose you can just take these characters straight on but it's easier to appreciate the movie as fetishised mediocrity. To simply enjoy watching the parade of the odd, awkward, and pretty in their Sunday best, earnestly singing their hearts out at the jailhouse.

Cry-Baby is available on The Criterion Channel this month as part of a playlist of John Waters movies.

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