Review: Polyester

A neurotic view of American suburbia, focussing primarily on the dysfunctional Fishpaw family. Divine (somewhat successfully deviating from his/her usual persona) is the rather fragile Francine, whose pornographer husband Elmer (David Samson) cruelly flaunts his philandering in her face. Teen daughter Lu-Lu (Mary Garlington) is a proud slut (Hey, in Waters’ world, that isn’t a derogatory term, believe me it’s an extremely accurate character description) who is pregnant but wants to have an abortion. Both of these incidents start to drive poor Francine crazy. Son Dexter (Ken King), meanwhile, is apparently a foot-fetish pervert skulking about the neighbourhood. Bland former 50s heartthrob Tab Hunter turns up as Tod Tomorrow, a romantic stranger who may just be Francine’s dream man. Mink Stole plays Elmer’s grotesque mistress, whilst Edith Massey plays Francine’s one true friend, Cuddles Kovinsky. Yep, Cuddles.

 

Whatever you thought of John Waters’ trashtastic “Pink Flamingoes”, it was every bit the film Waters wanted to make, and it sure wasn’t ‘safe’ or mainstream. It was unforgettable. Unfortunately, most of his subsequent films have indeed felt rather ‘safe’, if not entirely mainstream, though 2004’s amusingly grotty “A Dirty Shame” was as much a return to offensive form as modern conservative times would allow. But with films like “Hairspray” and this 1981 outing, the king of trash seems unsure of just what he’s trying to do here.

 

The nostalgic “Hairspray” is the better of the two films, though (And “Cry-Baby” is even better), as this one is deprived of much plot, or much of a point, to be perfectly honest. Working with New Line clearly gave writer-director Waters more money to play with ($300,000 apparently), and the film is certainly a lot less rough around the edges than “Pink Flamingos”, and we even get a score by Michael Kamen (“Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”, “Licence to Kill”, “The Three Musketeers”), as well as a title song written by Debbie Harry (who appeared in Waters’ later “Hairspray”) and sung by co-star Tab Hunter. The performances are certainly better than in “Pink Flamingos”, though the one and only Edith Massey is the same as she was previously. Personally, I’m fine with that. She’s clearly giving a terrible performance (apparently she had a hard time remembering her lines, and it shows), but some of that may be intentional, and it doesn’t matter anyway, because she’s memorable. In a weird, grotesque way, she’s even kind of adorable. Mary Garlington is hilariously stupid as the slutty teen daughter, it’s a wonderfully silly performance.

 

Aside from the abortion jokes (abortion is never funny to me), it’s one of his most accessible films, and some of it is funny (particularly Mink Stole and David Samson cruelly taunting Divine), but none of it is memorable, and I have no idea what it all really adds up to aside from showing that Waters has seen several Douglas Sirk melodramas. So have I, John. So what? More than anything it just seemed like a bunch of hyperreal characters, mostly from the same family, acting weird and crazy, with the barest of plots housing them. I wasn’t quite able to embrace this one, though I guess I find suicide jokes hard to laugh at post-Robin Williams’ shocking suicide (I’m aware Waters revels in bad taste, and usually I’m cool with that). But no, it’s just not that special.

 

I’m particularly surprised by the fact that Waters has Tab Hunter here for stunt casting, but barely uses the guy until the film is nearly over. Given how bad an actor he is, however, I’m not necessarily upset by that, but it still seems wasteful. He embraces the crazy, whacked-out exaggerated soap opera/melodrama spoof spirit of the thing, though I guess.

 

It’s better than “Serial Mom” (which shares some plot and tone similarities, actually), and occasionally funny, but overall I found this film sorely lacking substance, and since it’s not got the shock value of “Pink Flamingos” for the most part, it doesn’t really add up to enough. Maybe Waters was hamstrung by New Line, or maybe he willingly strived too hard for mainstream acceptance here, and diluted himself too much, I dunno. I bet the William Castle-esque ‘Odorama’ scratch-n-sniff gimmick added something to the original theatrical experience, but as is it’s just hovering around slightly above average at best without it. Listen carefully for a song on the soundtrack sung by the one and only Bill Murray. Yes, that Bill Murray. I have no idea why, either, but there you go.

 

Rating: C+