Touches You

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I hadn't seen "Polyester" since its initial release, and was curious about it after having just viewed the recent Criterion Blu-Ray of one of John Waters' earlier independent productions "Female Trouble" (1974). I honestly couldn't remember "Polyester" at all, or whether or not I had liked it, so I gave it another look today.I couldn't even finish watching it; what a wretched, unfunny mess of a movie. I guess Waters figured it was time to sell out for the Reagan era, which was probably a savvy business decision, but the way in which he did it, by doing a broad satire of a Douglas Sirk melodrama using trashy characters and a "reformed" Divine as the pathetic (rather than monstrous, as he played in "Pink Flamingos" and "Female Trouble") character of Francine Fishpaw comes off as a cheap, slapstick betrayal of his earlier anti-aesthetic. Perhaps Waters is even satirizing himself by having his heroine be a pro-life Christian, to show how "sick and twisted" heterosexual family life is in surburban America; recall that Edith Massey, playing Aunt Ida in "Female Trouble," states this explicitly in one of her scenes with her son Gator.I guess after realizing he couldn't "go home again" and had to do something totally different (his next film after this one, "Crybaby", was pretty iffy, too), Waters hit upon the goldmine idea of doing a musical, "Hairspray," which ended up rejuvenating his career and was later successfully produced as a Broadway smash. Waters didn't give up on his old "bad taste" aesthetic, however; his later film releases that hearken back to his Dreamland period, "Serial Mom", "Cecil B. Demented," and "Pecker", while all ultimately unsatisfying for one reason or another, are all superior to "Polyester". It is truly sad that Waters' last film with his star Divine was so lame, but it certainly wasn't because of Divine's acting. He gives it his all, but the script suffers from not having any sympathetic characters except maybe for Edith Massey. The casting of has-been Tab Hunter was probably a huge mistake, too, since he and Divine don't really have any chemistry onscreen. "Polyester" hasn't aged well at all, and should be considered a transitional misfire in Waters' career that he was, thankfully, able to put behind him.

This movie is just dripping with humor. The acting is terrible and over-the-top but exactly appropriate for this kind of movie. The dialog is always ironic. There are no jokes in this movie, this movie is a joke. I was smiling and laughing almost immediately from the start. The perfect dagger in the heart of all those bloated, pretentious, Hollywood films. Words cannot express how much I love this movie. Divine as always, is great. It contains such classic lines as "I'm going to get an abortion and I can't wait!" A purely farcical ridiculous look at suburban American life. Silly. Nobody can ever do or has done what John Waters is doing. He has created a style and put a moat around it.

John Waters was still doing really outrageous movies when "Polyester" came out. Portraying suburban Baltimore housewife Francine Fishpaw's (Divine) world falling apart, the movie pulls no punches. I just wish that I could have gotten an Odorama card when I watched the movie; maybe some of the things in the movie weren't to pleasant to smell, but it would have been neat nevertheless.What more to say? That whole sequence where the daughter was at the camp was a hoot. It just goes to show that if John Waters is all about bad taste, then he knows how to do it right. I hope that he keeps making movies forever.

As many of the readers saw on this site, I wrote a rather scathing review of John Waters' Desperate Living. "A desperate cry for attention" is what I called it. However, I also mentioned in that review that I enjoyed Polyester. After recently seeing Cry-Baby, I've come to a conclusion. Even though he's sick and twisted, when he wants to be, John Waters is actually a good director.Polyester certainly doesn't have much of a plot and is more concerned about the characters, a trait which I find admirable (that's what the Coens do). All of the characters are laugh out loud funny. The pushy husband, the cross dressing Divine, Lulu, the foot fetishist son (and thank God this movie doesn't have too much Edith Massey, that woman looks like she was dug up from the grave). Every character is so wacky in this wild ride that you can't help but laugh.I won't get too detailed about the plot because it's essentially about a neurotic housewife (Divine) whose marriage and kids are out of control. Her porno theater owning husband is having an affair with his secretary and unafraid to show it, the daughter hangs out with the bad boys, and as I mentioned earlier, the son is a foot fetishist (I think it'd be funny as hell to smash random people's feet). All of this leads her heavy boozing and pill popping. Thank God Tab Hunter comes along, he cheers her up, at least for awhile.One example of Waters pulling off good directing. Even though I'm a pro-lifer, I thought the scene when Lulu is attacked by pro-lifers, tries to punch her own baby, and is finally being taken away by nuns, was hilarious. I know Waters is a fan of abortion but in this scene, the zany pace made everything so ridiculous and as a result, it was funny. Everything was exaggerated to the nth degree, so I found it hard to be offended. The pace gets so frantic that you can't help but jump on for the ride.Overall, I liked this movie. Despite the fact that these actors won't be hitting Broadway anytime soon, the sheer enthusiasm of every character made their performances enjoyable. You could tell that they had a lot of fun making this gross out farce. It certainly isn't as offensive as past Waters vehicles, and that's fine. His characters were great and the hyper camera work shows that Waters knew what he was doing. I think Waters is actually pretty talented when he's not just grossing you out, and this movie showcases his skills.