DIRECTOR: John Waters
PRODUCERS: Robert Shaye, John Waters, Michael White ​    
PRODUCTION CO: New Line
​​SCREENPLAY: John Waters
PHOTOGRAPHY: David Insley
EDITOR: Charles Roggero
MUSIC: Debbie Harry, Michael Kamen, Chris Stein
WITH: Divine (Francine Fishpaw), Tab Hunter (Todd Tomorrow), David Samson (Elmer Fishpaw), Edith Massey (Cuddles Kovinsky), Mink Stole (Sandra Sullivan)

REVIEWS

“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. As her husband exclaims, “Well this whole world stinks, so get used to it!” Coincidentally, Francine has a particularly perceptive sense of smell. (For the film’s release, John Waters revived the tradition of Odorama with scratch‘n’sniff cards — asking his audience to stop and smell the roses… or gasoline… or flatulence.)
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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 and the typical trappings of a suffocating suburban reality. This delirious melodrama is one of Waters’ finest achievements and a perfectly pungent parody of Douglas Sirk’s so-called ‘women’s pictures.’”

– Brooklyn Academy of Music

“Polyester is the first film in which Waters’ bad taste properly encounters the American middle-class. While in previous films, such as Multiple Maniacs (1970), the characters inhabited a self-enclosed world of freaks, 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 and is the city’s infamous Foot Stomper (which happens to be based on a true story). 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 

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

​​New Plymouth  
Wednesday, 12 March, 6.00pm

​​Dunedin  
Wednesday, 02 April, 7.30pm

Palmerston North
Wednesday, 09 April, 6.00pm

Queenstown
​Tuesday, 20 May, 8.00pm

Whanganui   
Monday, 16 June, 7.00pm

Wellington
Monday, 28 July, 6.15pm

Wellington
Monday, 28 July, 8.30pm​

Nelson     
Wednesday, 03 September, 6.00pm

Timaru     
Tuesday, 18 November, 6.30pm

​Westport     
Wednesday, 10 December, 7.00pm
COMEDY CORNER >> ​