Polyester

Wednesday 2 April at 7.30pm

John Waters | USA | 1981 | 86 mins | R16 cert

Baltimore housewife Divine is driven to alcoholism by her cheating husband, promiscuous daughter and foot-fetishist son in this pungent parody of melodramatic delirium.

“Camp icon Divine stars as Francine Fishpaw, a frustrated housewife whose domestic life isn’t exactly what she imagined. Her husband is a cheating louse, her daughter is heavily involved with bad boys, and her son is making local news as a notorious foot-stomper… Francine seeks solace in her rags-to-riches friend Cuddles (Edith Massey, in her final performance) and curious stranger Todd Tomorrow (a tabloid-ready Tab Hunter), yet spirals into alcoholism.”—Brooklyn Academy of Music

“Polyester depicts the fears and anxieties of the normal American nuclear family and blows them out of proportion. For instance, that of the Farrah Fawcett-alike promiscuous daughter “who’s having an abortion and just can’t wait”, or the juvenile delinquent son, who regularly sniffs glue… The disorder of the family is patently visible against the bland background of single detached houses: in the suburbs, any deviation from the norm is blatantly visible.” —Elsa Padilla, Park Circus