Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)

John Cameron Mitchell in Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Cast: John Cameron Mitchell, Miriam Shor, Michael Pitt, Andrea Martin, Maurice Dean Wint, Ben Mayer-Goodman, Alberta Watson, Stephen Trask, Theodore Liscinski, Rob Campbell, Michael Aronov, Gene Pyrz. Screenplay: John Cameron Mitchell, based on the musical by Mitchell and Stephen Trask. Cinematography: Frank G. DeMarco. Production design: Thérèse DePrez. Film editing: Andrew Marcus. Music: Stephen Trask.

If nothing else, Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a landmark in queer culture, a rock musical about a non-binary performer that moved from Off-Broadway to movies to a Broadway production with big-name stars like Neil Patrick Harris and Darren Criss. But is it anything else? Does it deserve to be celebrated as something other than a colorful anomaly in the usually gender-stable milieu of theater and film? Does it speak to anything enduring about humanity? I think it probably does, largely because it extended my sympathies to a portion of humanity of which I'm not a part, but that's fortunately not for me to decide. I enjoyed it, which may just be enough.