The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
Back to trending 
Cry-Baby
Comedy · Romance · 1990
A prim and proper schoolgirl goes against her society grandmother's wishes when she dates a motorcycle-riding juvenile delinquent.
Movie details
Cry-Baby
“Good girls want him bad. Bad girls want him worse.”
1990 Comedy · Romance 1h 25m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.5 / 10
Community rating
A prim and proper schoolgirl goes against her society grandmother's wishes when she dates a motorcycle-riding juvenile delinquent.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Cry-Baby?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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It's graduation day at Huntington Hills High, and you know what that means - time to party. And not just any party, either. This one will be a night to remember, as the nerds become studs, the jocks are humiliated, and freshman crushes blossom into grown-up romance.
Sex Appeal
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Splendor
Comedy · 1999
Veronica is a white-bread beauty searching for a good man in Los Angeles. While slam dancing at a Halloween rave, she meets Abel, a sensitive poet. Then she meets Zed, a supersexy tattooed drummer with incredible biceps. Who will she choose? Does she go for true love or cheap sex? She can't decide so she chooses both. But after managing to nurture a picture-perfect threesome, along comes Ernest, a rich movie director with deep baby blues that sweep Veronica off her feet. What's a girl to do now?
The Night Before
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A popular beauty surprisingly asks a nerd to take her to the prom. He wakes up hours later in a sleazy alley. She's missing but he remembers nothing about it.
How to Be Single
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New York City is full of lonely hearts seeking the right match, and what Alice, Robin, Lucy, Meg, Tom and David all have in common is the need to learn how to be single in a world filled with ever-evolving definitions of love.
Players
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New York sportswriter Mack has spent years devising successful hook-up "plays" with her friends, but when she unexpectedly falls for one of her targets, she must learn what it takes to go from simply scoring to playing for keeps.
Valley Girl
Comedy · 1983
Julie, a girl from the valley, meets Randy, a punk from the city. They are from different worlds and find love. Somehow they need to stay together in spite of her trendy, shallow friends.
Cover Girl
Music · 1944
A nightclub dancer makes it big in modeling, leaving her dancer boyfriend behind.
You Instead
Music · 2011
Two feuding rock stars get handcuffed together for 24 hours at a music festival where they are both due to perform.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
John Waters
Written by
John Waters
Johnny Depp
Wade 'Cry-Baby' Walker
Amy Locane
Allison Vernon-Williams
Susan Tyrrell
Ramona Rickettes
Stephen Mailer
Baldwin
Iggy Pop
Belvedere Rickettes
Ricki Lake
Pepper Walker
Traci Lords
Wanda Woodward
Court is in session
Put Cry-Baby on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.