Hairspray

Musicals are very hit and miss at the best of times.
Hairspray is very much a hit. Set in the 1960s where impossibly wholesome looking people weren't as wholesome as they looked and where integration was a dirty word.
John Travolta might have top billing in this infectious musical, playing a woman well but not well enough that you don't laugh everytime he says something, but the star of the show is Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad. She doesn't fit in. She's overweight and short and unpopular but she loves to dance.
She's impossibly happy and effervescent and has something about her that just makes you smile. Michelle Pheiffer, doing her best Lara Flynn Boyle impersonation, is far too thin but suitably bitchy as Velma Von Tussle, producer of the Corny Collins Show. James Marsden is Collins and Tracy wants desperately to dance on his show, even though she would stand out and not in a good way.
Then there's Zac Efron as the dreamboat Link Larkin. I'm sorry but he's far too good looking for anyone's liking but such is the incredible nature of Hairspray it doesn't seem to matter that it is weird and unlikely how he falls in love with Tracy so quickly.
Basically this film is a hoot. You laugh at John Travolta (more at him but a little with him I suspect), your feet can't help but tap to the music and the singing, and it's just a great load of fun.
One of the most surprising films of the year, guaranteed to make you smile and leave the cinema feeling good. As much as I like a good drama, sometimes it's necessary to have a stick of candy. A very entertaining 7.5 out of 10.