"Hairspray" is a blast

If there's a debut performance on film this year that's better than Nikki Blonsky's in the daffily adorable film musical "Hairspray," I can't wait to see it.

Blonsky, a teenager whose previous acting experience took place in her high school's auditorium, is an irresistibly sunny presence, and she seizes the film and prances away with it in her middy blouse and sneakers, doing the Pony with our hearts. Perched high on a garbage truck, belting out a chorus of the opening anthem, "Good Morning, Baltimore," she's like Streisand on that tugboat in "Funny Girl": a performance so big the screen can barely hold it, and so joyously confident you can watch who's-that-girl become That Girl before your eyes. Blonsky entered this movie a regular teenager (she famously quit her job scooping ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery when she landed the role); she's coming out, as they say, a staaaar.

Why the extra vowels? Because this is a musical, and everything about it is larger than life. Originally a lovable 1988 John Waters movie about a girl in 1962 Baltimore determined to integrate a local television dance show, "Hairspray" became a hit Broadway musical a few years back (with an out-of-town tryout here at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre). Now, like "The Producers," it's become a movie musical — and, unlike "The Producers," this transition to film is simply delicious.

Who knew that director Adam Shankman, best known for the tepid comedies "Bringing Down the House" and "The Wedding Planner," had this kind of confidence and invention up his sleeve? "Hairspray" is an old-fashioned musical done up in lacquered bouffants and lollipop colors, and it wears its genre proudly; its musical numbers tend to overflow into the streets, or be echoed on its characters' fuzzy black-and-white televisions. When Blonsky's Tracy Turnblad wakes up in the morning, she's accompanied by invisible backup singers. (And aren't we all — those of us who love musicals, that is? Isn't that the very essence of musical comedy: life made brighter and more amplified?)

Though this is Blonsky's movie, Shankman has surrounded her with an experienced and well-chosen supporting cast. Michelle Pfeiffer is deliciously evil as a racist radio-station manager, who's horrified when Tracy suggests welcoming black kids to the teen dance program "The Corny Collins Show"; her Velma is wound so tight you fear she might just implode. Amanda Bynes brings her bug-eyed charm to the role of Tracy's best pal Penny; James Marsden has the perfect smarmy grimace as Collins. Queen Latifah does beautiful work in one of the film's few reflective moments, the song "I Know Where I've Been" as Tracy and her black friends lead a march on the station.

Christopher Walken shows off a little soft-shoe charm as Tracy's father. And, yes, you wonder fruitlessly how the movie might have been different if the wonderfully raspy Harvey Fierstein had reprised his stage role of Tracy's mother Edna, an overweight woman (always played by a man) so self-conscious she won't leave the house. John Travolta, however, gives a performance of much delicacy; he's sweetly coquettish and at times quite touching in Edna's self-loathing pain. Though his vaguely Southern accent sounds a bit too much like Dustin Hoffman's drag voice in "Tootsie," he finds a nice chemistry with both Walken and Blonsky.

With its zesty dancing (choreographed by Shankman), strong performances, goofball details (watch for Waters' cameo as a flasher) and sweet message of acceptance for all, "Hairspray" might just be this summer's happiest hit. You'll walk away humming — and remembering Blonsky, for whom this movie makes a glorious debutante ball.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com