Hedwig and the Angry Inch
2001 · Movie · 94 min. · United States
Hedwig (played by John Cameron Mitchell) was born as Hansel in East Berlin. In his twenties, Hansel agrees to undergo a sex change in order to marry a U.S. soldier (Maurice Dean Wint) and escape to America. Unfortunately, the procedure fails, and Hedwig is left with nothing but a sexless "angry inch" between her legs. After being abandoned in a Kansas trailer park by her husband, Hedwig decides to make the most of her situation: She develops a taste for outrageous wigs and costumes, forms a band, and becomes a singer. Hedwig soon meets and falls in love with 17-year-old Tommy (Michael Pitt), who also harbors rock star aspirations, and makes him her musical protégé. But Tommy is the one who ends up stealing the superstardom that Hedwig worked for, after stealing Hedwigs songs and claiming them as his own. In order to expose him as a fraud, she embarks on a tour of strip mall restaurants, telling her story to the audience while trailing Tommy on his own tour across America.
Direction John Cameron Mitchell
Cast John Cameron Mitchell · Michael Pitt · Miriam Shor · Alberta Watson · Stephen Trask · Theodore Liscinski · Rob Campbell · Michael Aronov · Andrea Martin · Maurice Dean Wint
Soundtrack Stephen Trask
Screenplay John Cameron Mitchell
Cinematography Frank G. DeMarco
Original title Hedwig and the Angry Inch
7.6
8K votes (FilmAffinity)
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