Cry Baby

Cry Baby videos

Cast & Crew

Johnny Depp

Wade 'Cry-Baby' Walker

Amy Locane

Allison Vernon-Williams

Susan Tyrrell

Ramona Rickettes

Polly Bergen

Mrs. Vernon-Williams, Allison's Grandmother

Iggy Pop

Uncle Belvedere Rickettes

Ricki Lake

Pepper Walker

Traci Lords

Wanda Woodward

Kim McGuire

Hatchet-Face, Cry-baby gang aka Mona Malrovawski

Darren E. Burrows

Milton Hackett

John Waters

Director

Jim Abrahams

Executive Producer

Brian Grazer

Executive Producer

Rachel Talalay

Producer

Patrick Williams

Original Music

David Insley

Cinematographer

Janice Hampton

Film Editing

Paula Herold

Casting

Pat Moran

Casting

Vincent Peranio

Production Design

Delores Delux

Art Director

Mary Ellen Woods

First Assistant Director

John Waters

Screenwriter

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Critic Reviews for Cry Baby

Audience Reviews for Cry Baby

• Dec 19, 2016

  In John Waters' movies, everyone is a walking caricature and everything looks like a witless self-parody, and this is an irritating musical that sounds silly and superficial when trying to be a clever commentary, as well as a horribly unfunny comedy filled with awful dialogue.

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  Super Reviewer
• Jul 20, 2014

  Johnny Depp's first starring role is as a sensitive "drape" who falls in love with a "square" in this campy John Waters juvenile delinquent musical. There's quirky humor (love the orphanage modeled on an animal shelter), and the doo-wop styled music is good, but the (deliberately) cardboard plot and underdeveloped characters failed to engage me.

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  Super Reviewer
• Jan 07, 2012

  odd characters but fun at the same time. john waters always had interesting stories to tell.

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  brendan n Super Reviewer
• Nov 25, 2011

  Man, "Gilbert Grape" was in production much longer than I thought. They were working on that thing back when Depp was taking on his first leading role in this, which was about four years before "Grape" came out, or at least that's why I think Depp's crying, because if I was trying to breakout and one of my very first majorly acclaimed films involved me having to try to carry a film with Leonardo DiCaprio as my co-star, I'd also be pretty down in the dumps, because you have about a snowball's chance on a summer day in Texas of that scenario ending in your favor. Well, he doesn't have to worry about that anymore, because now he's recognized as an actor that's so good that... he's virtually unrecognizable in a lot of roles he plays. Now, I know what you must be thinking: "That's the joke you came up with?" Hey, it's hard to come up with a joke about this film, because it's hard to make a joke about a comedy, and teen musicals are pretty darn laughable. Well, I last reviewed "The Astronaut's Wife", a 1999 sci-fi-horror-drama film, and somewhere along the way, I ended up talking about Eric Bana for most of the first paragraph, but I guess that it was relevant to the film at hand, seeing as watching Bana try to "act" is a dramatically horrifying experience, seeing as he's probably a robot, incapable of emotion. Jeez, I've been ribbing on that hack so much that "I" feel sorry for him... to the slighest of degrees, but luckily, I didn't have to deal with him in this film, which isn't to say that this film doesn't have its own problems that kind of damaged my enjoyment of it. Earlier, I joked that teen musicals are pretty darn laughable, but really, I was a ways away from the head of the nail, because a lot of teen musicals are more sigh-worthy than anything, and this is most certainly no exception, even if it's a joke. Now, it's not hard to tell that this film is a parody on those cheesy teen musicals of the '70s, but this is too much, and most every bit of exaggerated cliche, forced writing and - oh lord - really bad acting hits a little too hard. Don't get me wrong, as entertaining as those musicals are, it's high time someone came in and stuck it to them, but this satire definately stands to be subtler, and believe me, subtlety is far from a word that's appropriate for this film, and although this film is pure parody, that's not really a complement, because it gets to be a bit too over-the-top. The first four minutes is just the kids getting flu shots in order to establish who they are... just by showing them. There's no real development. Most of these characters are devices to the parody, but as I said, the satire is too much to pull it off at points, and that of course begs the question "What in the world does this film have going for it?" Pardon my typically forced tone change into enthusiastic, but the answer to that question is "enough to keep it going and keep it from falling completely flat." Yes, all of those early teen musicals were so blasted cheesy, but as I said earlier, they were fun, and this film, also being a bit of an homage to those old teen musicals, at least gets that right. There's so much camp in the tone and dialogue, and sure, there are plenty of points where it's just too much, but more often than not, it's effective, sometimes to the point of not just being campy, but full-on snappy, complete with plenty of delightufl "Oh!"s. A lot of the credit for the snap has to go those who are delivering the dialogue. True, campy performances are not always-oh forget it-are rarely genuinely enjoyable, because they are just so cheesy, but at the same time, that's what makes them so charming. Of course, Depp shows just how much everyone else does overdo it, because he delivers on the over-the-top camp with enough charm in his presence to really pull you in every time the spotlight hits him. Of course, a campy teen musical wouldn't be complete without, well, the musical aspect, and in that department, the film delivers on restoring the style and flair on those upbeat '50s throwback musical numbers. No, none of this keeps the film from being a mess, but it still makes the film pretty funny, pretty catchy and generally pretty entertaining, and really that's all it needs. Overall, the parody on the cheesy camp and cliches of the teen musical genre get to be overwhelming, due to the total absence of subtlety, but most of all, it's parody really hits, and as an homage to the teen musical genre, the film does its job at restoring the camp and charm in tone, dialogue, as well as music, and with the aid of a slickly charismatic Johnny Depp making a charming first impression as a film lead, "Cry-Baby" is ultimately left a generally fun throwback to the campy '70s throwbacks to the charming '50s. 2.5/5 - Fair

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  Super Reviewer