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| Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The |
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  (6/10)
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Runtime: 104 |
| Public Rating: 4.92 (36 votes) |
Director: Stephan Elliot |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Comedy |
Year: 1994 |
| Writer(s): Stephan Elliot |
| Distributor: 1 |
| Reviewed by: Goatdog |
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One of the more interesting road movies I have seen... Anthony (Hugo Weaving), Adam (Guy Pearce), and Ralph (Terence Stamp) are three transvestites who do the stage circuit in Sydney. Well, Anthony and Adam are transvestites; Ralph, better known as Bernadette, is transgender (she had a sex change operation, and has to swallow a cornucopia of hormone pills every day). They decide that the scene in Sydney is getting boring, and that the scene is getting bored with them. They purchase Priscilla, a huge bus, and head for Alice Springs, in the middle of the outback, for a two week job at a hotel there.
The story is about Anthony's (a.k.a. Mitzi) wrestling with the prospect of facing his former wife and son, who live in Alice Springs and who run the hotel they will be playing at. He doesn't want the others to know he has a son, but they soon find out, and harass him with jokes about being a breeder. He admires Bernadette, who is much older and wiser than the other two, for her courage to have the operation. Bernadette is tiring of the loud club scene, and wants to settle down. We meet her just after the funeral of her husband, who didn't mind that she used to be a man. She is lonely, but the company provided by the morose Mitzi and the flamboyant Adam, a.k.a. Felicia, isn't what she's really looking for. Felicia's over-the-top grandstanding grates on the nerves of the other two, but I think Mitzi finds her secretly attractive. Anyway...
They get lost after taking a shortcut, and are stranded in the middle of the desert when Priscilla breaks down. They are rescued by a band of aborigines, who don't seem to mind that the three are transvestites, especially when they break out the sound equipment and do a show. The trio also run into Bob (Bill Hunter), an affable sort who is married to a mail-order Asian woman who apparently used to be, and still wants to be, a prostitute. He decides to join the trio on their journey, especially after his wife runs off and he begins to develop feelings for Bernadette.
The outrageous costumes deservedly won the 1994 Oscar for Best Costume Design. The casting of the film was a stroke of genius: the usually manly Terence Stamp makes a surprisingly good transgendered woman, Guy Pearce (of "L.A. Confidential" and "Memento" fame) is unbelievably flamboyant, and Hugo Weaving went on to star as the head Agent in "The Matrix."
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