Punk lives!

Rating: 9/10 (1 May 2005)

This movie is strange, confusing, sad, beautiful, moving, angry; and a reluctantly allegorical story of love against all odds.
It's 'life is tough, but get over it' attitude proceeds through out most of the movie without a hitch, and when it seems it's too hard to keep on, the character just keeps rolling. The "I may be down, but screw you I'm not out!" spirit of punk resounds throughout the plot accompanied by one of the best original soundtracks I've ever heard.
When you hear the song "Angry Inch" with it's hard riffs, angry vocals and uncomfortably In-Your-Face subject matter, you'll dare anyone to tell you punk is dead. It may not be heard every day, but the spirit of punk lives in Hedwig!
I would have given this film a 9.5, had IMDb allowed it, as my reason for not giving it a ten is a minor annoyance with the soundtrack. Since this was originally adapted from a stage production, the actors could have taken the cheap way out and simply moved their lips to the songs from the original production. This didn't happen here. The actors in the movie re-recorded their vocals for this movie, even though most of the actors are the same ones from the stage production. This gives the soundtrack an amazing live feel throughout the movie. However, one of the actors from the stage production, a woman, was not in the movie. They replaced her with a man....but this was the one actor they did not re-record the vocals for. Oops! However, this is so rarely noticeable that I did not see it until I was looking for it, so it's really not a big deal.