Sunday, November 4, 2007

Desperate Living

     Desperate Living was John Waters's fifth movie and by his own admission was the first movie he made after quitting drugs (smoking pot to be precise). You really wouldn't know it though, because it's just as weird, wonderful, and hilarious as his other films and completely decimates the assumed theory that drugs were the reason his earlier movies were so strange. 

      This one ranks among his greatest, even with the unfortunate absence of Divine, who was originally slated to be in this film, but due to his new success as a disco queen, was not able to be in the movie because he was on tour. This is your typical strange and trashy John Waters film but presented in the form of a fairytale with a complete lesbian overtone, which totally managed to piss off the lesbian community, for how could a man make a successful movie about lesbians.  Maybe they forgot that John Waters was gay and I'm positively sure that he had plenty of lesbian friends. 

     Anyway, Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) is an utterly over-the-top neurotic suburban housewife, currently on an experimental visit home from the hospital, who along with her maid Grizelda kills Peggy's husband and both are exiled to the land of Mortville, where the population lives in constant mortification for something bad that they've done. A really shitty place to be but is still better than jail, but honestly not by much. Mortville is a "shanty town-like" village (complete with tourists!) that's ruled by the Evil Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey) and her gang of soldiers who are all clad in black S&M leather gear. 

      Peggy and Grizelda seek shelter with a tough-as-nails lesbian named Mole (the role that John Waters originally wanted Divine to play) and her girlfriend Muffy (the mildly famous Liz Renay).  Mole pretty much hates everyone and everything (the perfect role for Divine) and therefore a suburban snob like Peggy gets on her nerves like few others can.  Peggy and Grizelda's arrival is noticed by Queen Carlotta and are taken to her castle for an ugliness makeover so that they can better fit the role of a Mortville resident.  

     Meanwhile, the queen's daughter Princess Cuckoo is currently salaciously in love with the local garbage man from the nearby nudist colony. Every time I watch this film I always feel so bad for the actors who had to play the nudists because for some reason John Waters always filmed his movies in the bitterly cold winters of Baltimore Maryland and even the actors wearing clothes look like they're about to die from hypothermia.  

     Anyway, because Peggy Gravel is a naturally vicious person Queen Carlotta begins to take notice, and when Princess Cuckoo is stripped of her royalty due to dating a common trashman, Peggy is appointed the new princess and her first royal duty is to spread rabies to everyone in Mortville.  She manages to infect Princess Cuckoo but her evil plans are foiled before she can carry out Mortville's new "vaccination requirement" by a fullout lesbian attack on the castle by Mole, Muffy, and all the other town lesbians.  Grizelda probably would have helped but she was killed when the shack she rented from Mole collapsed on her (really, it was made of cardboard?!?) 

     Peggy is killed with a gunshot wound to the ass, the queen is killed and the residents cook and eat her, and the good Princess Cuckoo dies in a pool of rabies mouth foam.  Since Muffy is known as the most beautiful woman in all of Mortville, she is crowned the new queen and they all lived happily ever after (remember this is supposed to be a fairytale).  This is definitely one of Edith Massey's funniest performances, which almost makes up for Divine not being in the film. A total scream!

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