The Adventures Of Priscilla – Queen Of The Desert – Review

Saturday evenings are pizza and a movie night at our place, and this week we chose The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert. It’s the story of a road trip with a difference. Our travellers consist of two drag queens, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving, accompanied by an older, worldly wise transexual man, played to absolute perfection by Terence Stamp. Three of the hardest men in cinema in drag. Has to worth a look right ???

They take on this road trip at the request of Weaving, who’s ex wife, yes you heard right, runs a failing hotel in Alice Springs, and needs his help putting on a cabaret to help boost the hotels flagging finances. He agrees and recruits Pearce and Stamp to help out. A knackered old coach is bought, stocked up with all kinds of paraphernalia and a week long trek across the outback is born.

If youv’e already seen the film you’ll already know what happens along the way, but if you have’nt seen, it i’ll not spoil the fun your going to have finding out. Without giving too much away you have a handful of stops at a couple of quite hostile outback towns, a break down, a short cabaret for some of the indiginous locals in the middle of nowhere, and a performance you won’t forget in a bar, featuring the wife,  an hysterical vietnamese bride, of a local mechanic, , and some ping pong balls. This has to be seen to be believed.

This movie is quite simply one of the best feelgood experiences i’ve ever had. I’ve seen it several times and it never fails to have me in stitches. Pearce, Weaving and Stamp are perfect as the three leads, and an absolute joy to watch. I recently saw them in movies such as The Limey and Lawless, real tough guy roles and this is a world away from all that, so to see these three guys playing these brilliantly funny charachters is nothing short of a revelation. Each one plays it with maximum camp, and every catty, bitchy line is delivered with total perfection. This could’nt have been done without a script that is nothing short of brilliant, and gives the guys so much to play with.

Put simply, this is a movie i never get bored of watching. I know most of the lines off by heart but they still make me smile. As with the movie Lawless, Guy Pearce steals the acting honours as Mitzi, followed very closely by Terence Stamp as Felicia, whos weather beaten attitude comes through nicely, and i think he gets all the best lines. “Iv’e said it before and i’ll say it again NO MORE FUCKING ABBA”.

The humour is sometimes crass, vulagr and course, but who cares, you love these guys so much it really doesn’t matter.

To sum up this is a five star movie that everyone should see. If you want a movie that’s going to make you laugh and doesn’t take itself, or it’s subject matter, too seriously then grab this. You won’t regret it…..did i mention the story of the little ABBA memento. I’ll let Mitzi tell you……….