Polyester (1981) User Reviews

Fishpaw Family Values

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 17 March 2017]

If John Waters did nothing else in his career he created the fabulous screen team of Divine and Tab Hunter. Back in the day when he was one of Henry Willson's chiseled clients he was linked often on and off screen with Natalie Wood. Personally I think he works much better with Divine.

Polyester and it seemed everyone was wearing the fabric in 1981 in some manner is a wonderful satire on the American scene. Like Married With Children the Fishpaws are your typical American family seen with a jaundiced eye. But the Fishpaws make the Bundys look like the Cleavers.

Our leading character is Divine all 300 pounds of her who has let herself go to seed married to this bum of a husband David Samson who is getting on with his secretary. Divine is a good Christian woman who lives the middle class life due to Samson's income from a drive- in he owns where porn rules.

Her daughter Mary Garlington is the Kelly Bundy of the 80s. And her son Ken King has issues that make Bud Bundy look like the All American kid. He's not called the Baltimore Stomper for nothing.

In the end she gets shed of Samson and meets her dream man, Tab Hunter. But that's only the beginning.

Divine created some very funny characters for John Waters in her life. But they had a touch of pathos and sadness as well. This was her great strength as a performer.

Waters serves up some real funny stuff in Polyester. It's positively Divine.

Divine is divine in this blithely crazed John Waters romp

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 27 November 2019]

Harried and unhappy housewife Frances Fishpaw (Divine in terrific overwrought form) has her hands full dealing with her sleazy unfaithful husband Elmer (a nicely slimy turn by David Samson), promiscuous pregnant daughter Lu-Lu (a gloriously vampy portrayal by Mary Garlington), and depraved glue-sniffing son Dexter (Ken King, who's a total pervy hoot). However, much-needed relief materializes in the form of the hunky Tod Tomorrow (smoothly played to the suave hilt by Tab Hunter).

Writer/director John Waters pokes merry wicked fun at everything from puritanical small town mores to campy 50's melodramas to uptight conservative religious bluenoses with his trademark lip-smacking twisted glee while also maintaining a snappy pace and a winningly breezy irreverent tone as well as piles on one outrageous plot contrivance after another with infectious go-for-broke abandon.

Moreover, Divine manages the remarkable feat of making poor beleaguered Francine a genuinely tragic and sympathetic character. In addition, Edith Massey almost steals the whole show as Francine's ditsy, yet always upbeat best gal pal Cuddles, Mink Stole has a ball as Elmer's slinky tramp mistress Sandra Sullivan, Joni Ruth White cranks the sublime snark up to eleven as Francine's snooty mother La Rue, Stiv Bators attacks the juicy role of punk thug Bo-Bo Belsinger with sneering aplomb, and Jean Hill has a hysterical bit as an irate woman who hijacks a bus. An absolute kitschy riot.

gloriously bad acting and Odorama

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 29 November 2015]

In Baltimore, Francine Fishpaw (Divine) only wants to be a normal suburban housewife. The problem is that her husband Elmer shows pornos in his theater and the neighbors are demonstrating on their front lawn. Her kids are flirtatious Lu-Lu and foot-obsessed Dexter. There is a notorious Baltimore Foot Stomper on the loose. Elmer is cheating with his secretary. Dexter gets expelled from school. Lu-Lu fails every class and gets knocked up by pathetic thug Bo-Bo.

John Waters is reveling in deliberate bad acting, satirical craziness and outrageous story. It's weird and that's how he likes it but it isn't big laughs funny. It's not for everyone and it's not really even for me. The big plus of this movie is the charismatic Divine. She brings a humanity to her unreal character.

strange movie and strange viewing

[imr4064 · 1 August 2007]

I have to comment on this movie.It was 1981 and it was my birthday.I moved to a new job and knew absolutely no one and went to a theater to see "Polyester" knowing nothing about it.It was raining and as soon as I entered to buy a ticket three employees started laughing and looking at me.They said you are the only one here to see the movie.I was handed a card and I went to a seat and sat down and the previews started.An usher walked by and I said hey,turn down the lights and turn up the sound.I put my feet up on a seat-back and thought hey,this is okay.It was my first John Waters movie and I laughed a lot at the crazy movie.I used the scratch and sniff card as prompted by the screen which was cool.I had a great time.It wasn't until several years later when I saw more Water's films that I even knew that Divine was actually a man and Water's films were a wee tad irregular.If you are humored by odd movies and odd people then watch the movie.I wish I had saved the scratch and sniff card.Not a movie for the kids.

I Had a Smile on My Face the Whole Time

[CMRKeyboadist · 9/10 · 22 June 2006]

John Waters is truly a great director. I had seen Pink Flamingoes but not to much of his earlier work. I am more familiar with his later works like Serial Mom or Cecil B. Demented, which is all great stuff. Polyester is the bridge, as so many people put it, between his disgusting yet entertaining earlier work to more mainstream films like Hairspray.

Divine plays Francine Fishpaw. A rather large lady who is married to a man who owns a pornographic theater. Her son is a drug attic who loves to smash womens feet and her daughter is a wannabe Go-Go dancer who gets herself pregnant. Francine has only one friend in the world and that is Cuddles who is wonderfully played by Edith Massey. After Francine catches her husband sleeping with another woman (Mink Stole) Francine's life starts going into a downward spiral as she can't control her children and she becomes an alcoholic. Only, when she meets a man named Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter) do things start to change... or do they?

I had a grin on my face throughout the whole movie. The storyline sounds pretty depressing but only John Waters could have pulled this off and turn it into a complete comedy. Divine is right at home in her role as Francine. You truly do feel completely sorry for her. Edith Massey is excellent in the role as Cuddles and is definitely the most likable character in the whole movie. What made this movie so great for me was when this came out in theaters I was to young to see this. I just recently bought it on DVD and it comes with an actual Scratch N' Sniff card for the movie! Great stuff! This movie gets a 9/10 from me.

Oh my god, it's Divine!!!

[quin1974 · 7/10 · 29 January 2001]

This must be one of the worst efforts in moviemaking I have ever seen, and also one of the funniest.

The story of Francine Fishpaw (played by transvestite Divine), the good Christian "wife" of a porntheater owner and how she became an alcoholic is told in such a bad and tasteless way that it became funny to watch. It really made me think of movies made by Ed Wood: so incredibly bad that they must become cult-classics. The timing in the movie amounts to nothing. There is no dicernable structure to be seen for miles around. The plottwists are too ludicrous for words. But it was all made with a lot of love and that is something that counts.

The sets on the other hand have been crafted in such a perfect obnoxious American suburban way that they made me shiver. The same thing counts for the costume design, absolutely fantastically horrible, all that Polyester.

At least John Waters in consistent in one aspect of the film: everybody is a lousy actor. There is absolutely nobody in this cast that can even remotely put on a decent performance. Edith Massey in particular is absolutely too horrible to watch. If only Joaquin Phoenix were old enough at the time, he would have played the role of Dexter Fishpaw to perfection, but he would have been too good for this cast.

The is the perfect exhibition of obnoxiousness and a great satire of American moral values.

7/10

Easily one of Waters most hilarious films.

[NateManD · 10/10 · 13 July 2005]

I love John Waters movies. Whether it's his old or new films. He has his own strange sense of humor. In "Polyester" Devine plays down to earth overweight housewife Francine Fishpaw. Poor Francine, her husband who runs the local porn theater (pronounced thee-ater) is having an affair. Her own mother insults her constantly, her son is a glue sniffer with a foot stomping fetish and her daughter Lu-Lu is a teen rebel with an unwanted pregnancy. The only true friend Francine has is Cuddles, played by the always hilarious Edith Masey. Francine's soap opera like life spins out of control resulting in alcoholism and depression. This movie is filmed in oder-rama and the DVD comes with a scratch and sniff scent card. If you need a good laugh, you should definitely see "Polyester". And who could forget the words of young Lu-Lu? "I'm having an abortion, and I can't wait!" Don't wait .... to see this movie.

Technically improved but slightly tamed effort from John Waters and Divine

[brchthethird · 6/10 · 14 November 2014]

POLYESTER, while representing an improvement in filmmaking technique from previous John Waters' movies, is still noticeably lacking in the narrative department. I suppose that maybe his style isn't the best fit for me, but the biggest problem with this movie is that the story is rather disjointed and lopsided. A lot of time is spent building on Divine's character's frustration and torment, but the payoff of is rather short-lived and weak. Part of the reason it's like this may have something to do with the type of movie that POLYESTER is making fun of, and the satire is pretty dead-on at times, but it succumbs to a lot of the goofiness and clichés as well. As far as acting is concerned, Divine was never really the greatest actor, but she managed to put together a decent performance here, at least more so than she did in previous John Waters films. Here, she played an entirely sympathetic character. Also starring was Tab Hunter, who was a heartthrob from the 50's and was in a bunch of movies I've never seen. Obviously, it would have helped if I'd seen or heard of him before seeing this, but I can only imagine he was poking fun at his previous image and he did look like he was having a good time on screen. Overall, POLYESTER isn't John Waters' best movie nor his worst. It's an average story with improved production values. It's also more tame than previous Waters movies, so newbies to his style wouldn't be as put-off by this as something like PINK FLAMINGOS or FEMALE TROUBLE.

Divine!

[JayFive · 9/10 · 1 November 2004]

A seriously divine comedy about the twisted and perverted American family life that only John Waters can deliver.

This film revolves around the main character, an aging housewife played by the transvestite Divine. Divine is married to a smut peddler and has two kids, Lu-Lu a girl who dances for the boys in exchange for quarters and Dexter the paint huffing/foot stomping fetish obsessed son. Than there is a new lover for Divine played by the macho Tab Hunter. Sickly fun for the whole family. John Waters even presents the film in the extremely token Smell-O-Vision. I love Waters' over to the top story lines mixed together with large doses of perversion and sleaze. Watching this movie is the equivalence of being forced to ride Mr. Toad's Wild Ride for two hours in the midst of an Ether binge..... it's just that good.

Just Your Average American Family

[gftbiloxi · 7/10 · 21 May 2005]

After several years of crudely made, crudely funny films such as PINK FLAMINGOS, director John Waters graduated to a somewhat more sophisticated style, and POLYESTER has a comparatively (note the word: comparatively) subtle script, cinematography that doesn't shake, sets and props that don't actually look like they were salvaged from the local junkyard, and even a mainstream star: 1950s matinée idol Tab Hunter.

The story concerns the extremely dysfunctional Fishpaw family. Husband Elmer is in the porno movie business; daughter Lu-Lu is a mindless teenage slut with a nasty boyfriend; son Dexter is wanted by the law for a sexual fixation that leads him to stomp women's feet! And then there is the mother, poor Francine, extra large and utterly at sea, hoping against hope for middle class respectability in the midst of it all.

Tab Hunter (who is even more of a stud here than in his earlier pretty-boy days) romancing female-impersonator Divine is a major draw, and there is enough hilarity--ranging from a nun-enforced hayride for single pregnant women during a rainstorm to a black gospel singer who hijacks a bus to chase down a juvenile delinquent--to keep the show rolling, and the satirical edge is often quite effective.

Even so, POLYESTER lacks the same shock appeal that made Water's earlier work so entertaining--and it is a tremendous pity that we can't experience the film in its original "ODORAMA." Recommended, but primarily for Waters fans interested in seeing him in his transitional phase.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

what was it?

[writtenbymkm-583-902097 · 1/10 · 29 June 2022]

I honestly have no idea what this was supposed to be. I've enjoyed a wide range of movies (though not many recently) -- everything from foreign (Mon Oncle, Troll Hunter, Too Many Crooks, The Tenth Victim) to early black & white American comedies, mysteries, satire, and sci-fi. But this! Fortunately I only rented the DVD and didn't buy it. It seemed to go on and on forever, one outrageous and absurd situation after another, totally unbelievable characters behaving in totally unbelievable ways, for no apparent reason other than to be "shocking." I don't understand why Waters made it, or what it was supposed to be about, or,ultimately, why I even watched it. I guess I kept hoping there would be some point, some reason, some conclusion, but I watched to the bitter end and found... nothing. It left a horrible taste in my mouth. I hated it!

A Deceptively Clever Trash Heap

[blakiepeterson · 8/10 · 26 June 2015]

"Polyester" is a sort of warped women's picture, something reminiscent of a forgotten late career Liz Taylor vehicle that everyone glances at for a moment only to go back to drooling over something "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" related. I'm sure John Waters wanted it that way. Around the time "Polyester" came out (the early '80s, to be exact), he began to get bored with merely shocking people; he had ideas, dammit, and he was going to show the world! Making his favorite drag queen feast on dog poop for the sake of a jolt wasn't going to cut it anymore. So, following "Polyester", he became increasingly mainstream friendly, his next venture being 1987's "Hairspray", which was, in turn, followed by "Cry-Baby" and "Serial Mom". I've only witnessed the latter two — I'm too terrified to watch his earlier, more disgusting ventures — and it's impossible not to get a kick out of his filmmaking instincts.

Waters has said that he finds equal influence in high-brow art films and sleazy exploitation trash heaps, and "Polyester" combines the characteristics of the two with startling mastery. It ain't Bergman and it ain't Hill — instead, it's like a Joan Crawford sudser that bled internally after getting shot at a 711 but still decided to crawl to the nearest movie premiere to make an entrance with drama. The film is satire, but it's also a love letter, a stan, if you will, of the Hollywood Golden Age chick flick.

If you aren't so convinced of "Polyester"'s determination to give a sloppy kiss to the good old days of the campy melodrama, listen to this plot: overweight housewife Francine Fishpaw (Divine), who considers herself to be an atypical "good, Christian woman", is about to have a nervous breakdown: her dear husband, Elmer (David Samson), is the successful owner of a local porn theatre and an adulterer of the lowest common denominator. Her kids are maniacs: her daughter (Mary Garlington) is an aspiring go-go dancer knocked up by a hoodlum, while her son (Ken King), a glue-sniffer, is currently making media rounds as the Baltimore Foot Stomper. She has no friends, besides the asinine Cuddles (Edith Massey), and her verbally abusive mother (Joni Ruth White) makes sure to frequently stop by the house simply so she can berate her. So after her life eventually goes completely down the shitter (and I mean completely), she spirals into an alcohol-fueled depression. But after she meets Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter), a corvette driving businessman, things begin to look up.

I know, I know, "Polyester" sorta kinda sounds like an extremely over-the-top drama even Bette Davis would have turned down. But this time around, drama doesn't seem like the right kind of word by way of description. Is there a right word(s) to accurately describe "Polyester"? Consider: our female lead is a poorly dressed drag queen who has no problem reminding us that she is, in fact, a man (always a running joke for Waters). Consider that Tab Hunter, yes, Tab Hunter, the Golden Boy of the 1950s teen movie, is her love interest; that her supposed BFF, portrayed by the indelibly lovable Massey, is nearly toothless; that the film, as part of a marketing stunt, came with Odorama scratch-and-sniff cards to give the viewers a realistic aromatic experience.

Nothing about "Polyester" is remotely serious, and I like it all the more for it. At first, it seems like a bunch of super messed up friends got together and decided to make a movie, but as the film continues, one realizes that Waters is actually a clever writer, and Divine is a star, especially when it comes to sniffing loudly (you've got to promote that Odorama, after all), making disgruntled moans, and being all around charismatic. Yes, "Polyester" is chintzy, but sometimes, even the trashiest of entertainment seems like some form of bizarre art. Waters loves to throw garbage at us, but he's good at it. He's a smart director and a smart writer, as good at shocking as he is causing a guffaw. And you're damn right he calls this a living.

John Water's Purest May Not Rank This Film as Highly as His Earlier Work.

[savanna-2 · 7/10 · 29 November 1999]

Okay I know a lot of John Water's fans _won't_ rank this movie as high as some of his earlier work, because it is fairly "mainstream" for Waters. I liked Divine's performance in this film and loved the relationship with Tab Hunter. Also get to see another fav of John Water's, Mink Stole, as well as many other "regulars" to his films. If you haven't seen any of his work, I would start here. Sadly though, we don't get the theatre experience of *Odorama* (that's what the numbers signify---a scratch and sniff card that was handed out to movie goers.

Pure Trash!

[mcgriswald · 1/10 · 27 January 2007]

Polyester was the very first John Water's film I saw, and I have to say that it was also the "worst" movie I had seen up to that point.

Water's group of "talent" included several people who I am sure worked for food, and were willing to say the lines Waters wrote. Every thing about the movie is terrible, acting, camera, editing, and the story about a woman played by 300 lb transvestite Divine was purely absurd.

That said, I have to recommend this film because it is very funny, and you won't believe the crap that happens to poor Francine. Her son huffs solvents and stomps unsuspecting women's feet at the grocery store. Her daughter is the sluttiest slut in town. Her husband is a cackling A-hole of a pornographer who does everything in his power to embarrass and humiliate poor Francine.

Francine's only friend is played by Edith Massey, possibly the worst actress ever. Edith looks and sounds like she is reading the lines off a cue card and has never seen the script prior to filming.

Despite all of Francine's travails, Waters cooks up a fabulous Hollywood ending and everyone (who survives) lives happily ever after.

Stiv Lives!

[Twins65 · 26 August 2003]

I remember seeing this the night it came out (God, was it really 22 years ago!). We all went down to a late night showing at the Cedar on the West Bank in Mpls., with about 4 hours worth of "feelgood" in us.

I was familiar with Waters' work, having seen PINK FLAMINGOS, and was ready for the "Odorama" cards handed out when you bought your ticket, but my "associates" were a bit mystified. It all led up to a very different & unique experience, which really hasn't been equaled since.

Basically, there were about 10 (numbered 1-10) scratch-n-sniff scents which were to be activated by you from the card when a flashing number appeared on the screen. They included a rotten egg smell for flatulence (somebody broke wind in the movie), along with a natural gas smell when a character stuck their head in an oven, among others. You get the idea. Anyway, it had the usual John Waters' cast of characters (Mink, Edith, Divine, etc.), along with the late, great Stiv Bators making his big-screen debut as (what else), a delinquent. Stiv pulls it off quite well, and everything else pretty much amounted to a fun show-going experience.

Not nearly as shocking as FLAMINGOS or FEMALE TROUBLE, but surely rent it if your into that sort of thing (a/k/a the pre-HAIRSPRAY Waters). I'm sure those "Odorama" cards are long gone, so you'll have to get creative on your own to replicate the experience that was "Odorama".

Cheap, sleazy and great fun

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 28 May 2007]

This movie deliberately set out to be offensive and awful--though fortunately NOT as offensive and gross as Waters' earlier film, PINK FLAMINGOS. So, in many ways this is one of Waters' first more approachable and mainstream films. Now I still would NOT let youngsters watch the film (mostly because it talks about a lot of strange and sick taboos), but it's probably okay for teens.

Divine stars as a housewife with the most awful family imaginable. Her husband is a pornographer who hates her guts and sleeps with his secretary, her son has a bizarre foot fetish and attacks women and her daughter is a total whore (and proud of it). As a result, the most NORMAL member of the family is the cross-dressing Divine! In addition to the family, a whole cast of maniacs and freaks co-star in the film--ranging from the always gross and untalented Edith Massey (who is so bad she's GREAT) to the once-famous Tab Hunter to Jean Hill in a small part as a woman who hijacks a bus in a small but hilarious scene. As far as the acting goes, all these people deliberately overdo it and are pure camp--giving the film a kooky sort of charm.

In addition to weird characters and bad acting, the film also features a script that is just too bizarre and trashy to be believed. It is sure to offend almost all viewers, but is also terribly funny. I particularly liked the scenes involving the abortion clinic and the nuns--you'd just have to see it to believe it.

All together, all these bizarre and shocking elements make for a very kooky and funny film that can't help but make you laugh--unless you are dead. While the film bears almost no similarity to later polished Waters films (such as HAIRSPRAY), it is wonderful in its own way--and almost as much fun to watch as my personal favorite, FEMALE TROUBLE. See it to believe it.

Everybody loves a happy ending

[pmtelefon · 6/10 · 14 March 2018]

It's hard to describe "Polyester". It's not a camp movie. It's different. It does have some funny moments. It does have some really funny ideas. And Divine is something else. Almost always watchable in this one. The only scene that he didn't really pull off was the ending. There is a lot of really funny stuff in this one. On the flip side, there's a lot cringe worthy stuff in it too. John Waters would later lose his way. I guess he couldn't work with a budget. John Waters was a unique filmmaker. There will never be another one like him. I'm saying I'm a fan of his movies but he is a director that I think should not be lost to younger generations. "Polyester", for better or worse, is one of a kind.

One of the greatest anti-films

[pintousmcff · 10/10 · 23 February 2014]

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.

a delirious if inordinately over-the-top parody of suburban decadence

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 21 October 2019]

POLYESTER, John Waters' sixth feature, a delirious if inordinately over-the-top parody of suburban decadence, has inchoately elevated him from the seedy underground to the sightline of mainstream audience, starring Divine as Francine Fishpaw, a housewife buffeted by hammer blows consecutively, from a two-timing husband Elmer (Samson), her snooty and acquisitive mother La Rue (White), to two defective adolescent children, the promiscuous Lu-Lu (Garlington) and the perverse Dexter (King), the latter of which fetishizes feet and is the notoriously "foot stomper" harrying Baltimore, until a dreamboat named Todd Tomorrow (Hunter), who can easily sweep her off her feet but his affection might be sham.

Waters' script touches on a comprehensive scope of societal issues, adultery, pornography, abortion, sex perversion, romantic deception, alcoholism and depression, you name it. But the reason why it can earn a cult following decades after its release is simply because the transgression of casting a drag queen as a honest-to-goodness woman (Divine's own overweight grotesquerie alone has been incessantly exploited as both laughing stock and stereotype-shattering manifesto) and then runs away with it, Divine is too histrionic by half in reveling in those traditional characteristics designated to a witless female victim but the resultant campy fun is inestimable, especially with the concerted team work of players from Waters' Dreamlanders stock company....

continue reading my review on my blog: cinema omnivore

Are there any more Odorama cards in existence?

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 22 April 2006]

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.

Polyester

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 28 May 2023]

Remember the sensation that was "Smellyvision"? Well armed with a card which had ten different smells concealed under some silver foil spots, we set off to watch the escapades of the "Fishpaw" family. Divine is on good form as "Francine", the much put upon wife of serial womaniser "Elmer" (David Sampson) and mother to "Lulu" (Mary Garlington) and her wayward brother "Dexter" (Ken King). Her well-to-do suburban life all starts to come crashing down when her husband's soft-porn cinema attracts some local attention - of the wrong sort; the daughter manages to become pregnant with the help of a local thug and the son, well he has a rather weird foot-fetish that involves stamping heavily on any feet that take his fancy. It's all going pear shaped marvellously well for her until the hunky and charming "Todd" (Tab Hunter) offers her a dreamboat opportunity to escape the tortures of her family life. It's great fun, this - the characterisations are no deeper than a puddle but the pace at which John Waters keeps the mayhem and mischief coming thick and fast with plenty of humour that is entertaining, though admittedly a bit puerile and basic at times, manages to parody effectively quite a few more serious American comedy films made in the late 1970s. It's short, sweet and well worth a gander if you have 90 minutes and you even get on-screen instructions as when to scratch and sniff!!

Quite a come down from the Dreamland period

[jungophile · 4/10 · 2 July 2018]

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.

Gets funnier each time I see it!

[Vancity_Film_Fanatic · 8/10 · 3 March 2007]

The first "commercial" film for John Waters is considerably more tame than his earlier works, but is still a lot of fun mostly in part to the Odorama gimmick, which pays excellent tribute to B-movie horror maven William Castle who pioneered the movie gimmick back in the 50's.

All of the usual suspects (Divine, Edith Massey, Mink Stole) provide their ever so dependable over the top performances, and heck - Tab Hunter ain't too hard on the eyes either :) He fits in well with the rest of the motley crew. Definitely worth checking out for all John Waters fans or anyone looking for something a bit out of the mainstream.

PG-13 Divine for (almost) all the family!

[Fernando-Rodrigues · 7/10 · 19 April 2021]

It has a simple, but effective plot: a satire of the perfect American white family. It has some minor flaws like some events being fastened by the script, and the acid humor we're used to seeing on Water's movies lacks here... yet, it's entertaining.

John Waters' first "mainstream" feature is amusingly unconventional...

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 27 August 2006]

Cult director John Waters skimmed the outskirts of mainstream film-making with "Polyester", which had a bigger budget and better distribution than his previous output--it's even got Tab Hunter in the cast! Divine is a riot as a three-hundred-pound suburban housewife who is trying to deal with her wildly dysfunctional family: her daughter is pregnant, her husband is cheating on her, and her son is a notorious criminal (he sneaks up on unsuspecting ladies and stomps on their feet!). Although the movie runs too long and eventually wears out its welcome, Waters keeps it hopping with wild, wicked energy. Tasteless, hilariously overwrought, and full of memorable sight-gags (like a picnic that gets ruined by ants). The flashing numbers on the screen related to a crazy theatrical gimmick called "Odorama". Leave it to John Waters to come up with the first scratch-and-sniff comedy. ** from ****