I love cinematic iconoclasts, and there have been few filmmakers that I admirer more in this regard than John Waters, whose unhinged audacity has made him a controversial figure, as well as someone I am deeply in admiration of. From the sheer unhinged insanity of Pink Flamingos to the enduring brilliance of Hairspray, Waters has left quite a legacy, and even if he hasn’t made a film in over a decade, his work still resonates as some of the most unrestrained expressions of cinematic anarchy ever made. The very recent passing of American icon Tab Hunter motivated me to finally seek out the film he made in collaboration with Waters, one of the director’s more embraced works, the suburban satire Polyester, a darkly comical film that has many of Waters’ most distinctive quirks, while unfortunately lacking some of the rugged charms of his previous works. While I did enjoy Polyester, there was just something missing that I had hoped would make it as special as his previous films. Nevertheless, Polyester is still a great film, just one that isn’t as unabashedly bold as some of his more beloved films. It is far-less polarizing, but no less audacious than his previous efforts, and it represents a more experimental side to Waters, which can only result in something as unique and offbeat as his previous works.

Francine Fishpaw (Divine) is a middle-aged suburban housewife who is constantly troubled by her sleazy husband, Elmer (David Samson), her lascivious daughter Lu-Lu (Mary Garlington) and her delinquent son, Dexter (Ken King). She has very few friends and is the laughingstock of their idyllic Baltimore community due to the antics of her family that only serve to humiliate her. Her only solace comes in the form of her former cleaning lady and current best friend, Cuddles Kovinsky (Edith Massey), a lovably strange woman who seizes the day with relentless gusto and tries to convince Francine to do the very same. When her husband leaves Francine for his alluring, seductive secretary (Mink Stole), it brings about a change of sorts in Francine, who first suffers from the embarrassment of being abandoned, sinking deeply into alcoholism, and the world around her seemingly punishing her for simply trying to be a decent person. However, when she encounters the charming Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter), the dashing proprietor of a local arthouse drive-in cinema (only in a Waters film can something like that exist), her life seems to start taking a turn for the better, and she can finally live the ideal life, reminiscent of the American Dream, without fear of humiliation. Her children return home, completely changed individuals, her husband experiences a satisfying downfall from his egotistical, self-imposed throne of heteronormative hypermasculinity and she manages to gain the independence and confidence she has craved throughout her life – but at what cost? This is a typical John Waters film, and thus there are always nasty surprises and hideous twists lurking around every corner of this story, and the film descends into utter anarchy as darkly comedic as it is bleak and hopeless.

I liked Polyester for a number of reasons, one of them being that this may just be Divine’s finest performance. I find Divine to be one of the most quintessentially unique performers to work in any medium, with his unabashed boldness and bravery in self-expression being utterly extraordinary and unheard of for someone like Divine, who managed to go from repressed homosexual in suburban Baltimore to one of the most celebrated queer icons in history. However, Divine was more than just a presence – he was a profoundly talented performer, and even when he was forced to do outrageous stunts such as those in Female Trouble and the infamous Pink Flamingos, Divine retained a sense of self-aware dignity, which portrayed him as a fearless performer who is willing to do anything for the sake of getting a particular message across. Polyester is the first collaboration between Waters and Divine that wasn’t built on Waters’ perverse fascination with seeing his friend do the most outlandish things, but rather a vehicle for Divine to exhibit his acting skills, which he has in abundance. His performance as Francine Fishpaw was exceptional – it extended far beyond a performance by a man impersonating a lady – like all of his performances, Divine became this character, and there is not a single moment where the audience is made to remember that this gloriously exuberant expression of feminine angst was being played by a man. Divine, despite all of the shocking stunts that defined his career, was an actor who could tap into the intricate nuances of female energy, and portray a character that was never exploitative or mocking, but rather fully-developed and complex. Divine has a reputation for being a bombastic, flamboyant counterculture icon, and while he certainly was, we cannot ever neglect the fact that underneath the skimpy costumes and elaborate wigs, there was an exceptionally talented actor, and even in his most shocking films, Waters managed to show his friend’s natural gift for inhabiting any role, and this is made clear with a film that focuses more on the character rather than the experience, such as Polyester.

With the exception of Divine, Polyester has some terrific performances from the secondary cast, albeit not utilizing its ensemble quite as well as previous Waters films have. Edith Massey, who is endearing and charming enough to compensate for her acting abilities which were slightly lacking, to say the least, once again plays an eccentric but well-meaning character who has a bright outlook on life and a relentless need to spread optimism, regardless of how unrealistic it is. Massey was a treasure, and of all of Waters’ regular collaborators, she was one of the most distinct. Her role in Polyester is slightly more complex than the Egg Lady in Pink Flamingos or Queen Carlotta in Desperate Living, insofar as it allows her to be slightly more complex and do a little more than just be a comedic presence. It is certainly not a towering performance on Massey’s part, but it is one that is hilarious and a scene-stealing turn from a truly unconventional screen presence. The other performance worth noting is that of Tab Hunter, a truly iconic performer who was collaborating with Waters for the first time. Initially, the idea of the dashing, beloved Hunter in a film by Waters seemed absurd, considering the filmmaker made his career out of the same stable of unconventional individuals, not through working with a sex symbol like Hunter, but once he is introduced into the film (sadly, only in the second half), it becomes clear how perfect Hunter was for this role, and how he fits in neatly with the rest of Waters’ troupe of odd performers. Waters, on occasion, has taken a famous (or infamous) individual and given them a role very much against-type, and in casting Hunter, the definition of the All-American ‘boy-next-door’, Waters effectively subverts expectations, allowing him to not only give a nuanced performance that extends far beyond being an attractive presence, but one that shows him in a very different light. Hunter was a terrific actor, but one whose reputation overshadowed his actual talents, and while his star faded somewhat as he grew older, he still managed to give a terrific performance in Polyester, being able to make fun of his own sex-symbol status while reminding everyone what a considerable talent he was. The rest of the cast of Polyester was constituted by recurring Waters collaborators, or newcomers to the Dreamlanders, many of which are very good, but none of which make any lasting impression.

When Polyester was made, Waters was known almost exclusively for his transgressive, shocking films that questioned human decency and challenged what can be conveyed in a film, testing the boundaries of what audiences are willing to endure (this is not criticism – it is the highest praise. Waters has an audacity rarely seen in any form of art, and for that I adore him and his films), so it was odd that he opted to make something slightly more wholesome – while certainly not as well-meaning as something like Hairspray, Cry-Baby or Pecker, Polyester represents Waters making a more mature film, albeit one that doesn’t entirely abandon the outrageous nature of his previous films. He crafts a satire that takes the most nuanced route of expressing its story through mindful storytelling as opposed to stringing together a set of shocking moments. Polyester would be Waters’ first foray into more complex filmmaking, and while it doesn’t entirely abandon the strange idiosyncrasies that defined Waters’ earlier works, it was doubtlessly made to be more palatable by a wider audience, and it became a cultural phenomenon of sorts (probably due to this film introducing the Odorama concept, which may lead one to consider Polyester more of a film made to support a particular gimmick). Polyester is one of Waters’ least repulsive films, and it clearly did effectively introduce him to a wider audience, but it came at the unfortunate loss of some of his more charming qualities, which he did quickly refine and integrate into subsequent films, and I have no doubt that Polyester is a film that will appeal more to those who are adverse to Waters’ more questionable subject matter in other films, while still being daring enough to experience the filmmaker’s chaotic vision of society.

I do want to give Polyester the benefit of the doubt, and praise it, because despite not being as fascinatingly polarizing as Waters’ preceding films, it is still a very good film, and even if it did leave me slightly underwhelmed, I still enjoyed it. Despite the lack of sickening imagery and grotesque storylines, Polyester is still a very bold film, and it takes on the most sacred of contemporary ideals: the American Dream. At the outset of this film, we are presented with a seemingly-perfect nuclear family: the faithful, submissive mother and wife, the hard-working father, the teenage daughter blossoming into adulthood and the son who is pursuing his own creative hobbies. Of course, this is John Waters, and with the exception of Francine (who does her best to present herself as the ideal housewife), the rest of her family is abusive and abhorrent. Polyester focuses on the corruption of suburban society, and it manages to be one of the most effective suburban satires, showing the faults that lurk beneath such societies without relying too heavily on the point of exposing the “red ants underneath” this utopian community, as David Lynch would say. I may be lukewarm on the film as a whole, but even I have to acknowledge how effective Waters’ exploration of generic, white picket fence-filled communities was. His scathing but hilarious vision of suburbia, which is quietly chaotic, was astounding, and it was truly captivating. Polyester was different what Waters had done before, but that certainly does not mean that it was any less audacious – it was just a bit more refined and less reliant on shock value, and more intent on presenting a particular story through some subversive social commentary.

Polyester is a strange film, even by Waters’ standards. I did enjoy it, even if I did feel like it was lacking the transgressive spark of earlier works. Understandably, this was the filmmaker’s first attempt at making something more agreeable, something for a wider audience. This shows Waters being more experimental in terms of tone and story, and the result, while not as outrageously charming as one would hope, is still a terrific film, one that features brilliant performances from the leading star Divine and the ensemble of talented individuals, specifically Edith Massey and Tab Hunter, both of which are tremendous here. Bold and unpredictable, Polyester is a special film, and an admirable effort on Waters’ part, due to his relentless and unhinged intention to show the more absurd side of suburbia, exposing the American Dream and dismantling the idea of the ideal – Polyester shows that there is no such thing as the ideal wife, the ideal home, the ideal family or the ideal life, and for that, it is a daring film, and one that was executed with unexpected poise on the part of a director who garners pleasure through shocking audiences, which Polyester certainly does do, although in a way that is more reliant on subversive storytelling, rather than engaging in sordid on-screen debauchery. Personally, I don’t think Polyester is amongst Waters’ best, but it is certainly amongst his most interesting. Not quite as memorable as other films by Waters, but certainly unforgettable, which seems to be exactly what Waters intends to do with his films: he wants the audience to feel shock and awe, and have those sensations linger long after the film has ended, which can definitely be said about Polyester.