Poor Francine Fishpaw. Her husband owns a porno theater. Her
son is a foot fetishist who gets off on stomping the shoes of unsuspecting
women. Her daughter suffers from some sort of wiggling syndrome. Francine’s
grim existence encapsulates the worst of being a twentieth century housewife. Could
salvation from that existence be the possibility of romance with dashing Todd
Tomorrow? Or does disappointment and madness await Francine?
John Waters’s Polyester
is both a parody of Douglas Sirk’s classically overwrought melodramas of the
fifties and an awkward bridge between Waters’s early gross out movies and the
relatively mainstream likes of Hairspray
and Serial Mom. It is awkward because
Waters has trouble striking the right tone for this comic-tragedy. It is at its
best when going for straight comedy in the director’s usual over-the-top vein.
No one nails that tone better than Mary Garlington as incessantly squirming
daughter Lu-Lu. Strangely, it’s Waters mainstay Divine who seems to have the
most trouble acclimating. Tasked with playing the only normal character for
once, Divine bounces between moments of somewhat-sincere soap opera acting and
grotesque over-acting to portray Francine’s ugly decent into madness. I prefer
to see Divine throwing Cha-Cha heels tantrums to sobbing into a hankie, thank
you very much.
