“THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT” - RETRO REVIEW

I’m always looking to expand my mind and my cinematic palette, and in the interest of checking out films for Pride Month, I suddenly remembered that the Australian comedy THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT turns 30 this year and I still hadn’t seen it.

I grew up in Pine City, Minnesota, about 15 minutes south of Hinckley, and I probably first heard of this film on Entertainment Tonight or Siskel & Ebert. I also remember the film winning an Academy Award for its costumes, and I remember costume designer Lizzy Gardiner wore a dress completely comprised of gold American Express cards.

Oscar-winning costume designer Lizzy Gardiner at the 1995 Academy Awards.

I would have been 14, and becoming more conscious of other ways of being and living. My family was not a big movie watching family, and given that it was the mid-90s in rural evangelical Christian America, this film unfortunately isn't one my family would gravitate towards. Even with the “road trip dramedy” being one of my top favorite film genres, I still hadn’t gotten around to it.

Well, I finally did this week and this film—about two drag performers and a trans woman on a road trip of redemption and self-rediscovery through the Australian desert in a rickety ol’ silver (and then pink) charter bus to perform a new show—is a hoot. It is a fun, funny, campy, glitzy, imaginative, poetic, outrageous and yet incredibly grounded character study of these three people, each going through something individually profound.

Tick/Mitzi (Hugo Weaving) gets the story rolling when his estranged wife offers a four-week gig performing a drag show at the hotel casino resort she manages. Tick has been existing but not really living, and even his drag performances are becoming joyless. He’s nervous about the prospect of going, which will bring him into contact with the eight-year-old son he hasn’t seen in years, but nothing is really stopping him from going at this point. He ropes in Adam/Felicia (Guy Pearce, who I’ve never seen so funny and free), the most fun-loving and flamboyant of the trio, who scores them the bus which they dub Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Rounding out their trio is the recently bereaved Bernadette, played with estimable gravitas and somberness by Terence Stamp, and with his trademark glint of mischief. I also need to mention the presence of the late, great Bill Hunter (MURIEL’S WEDDING), who plays sort of the ultimate LGBTQIA+ ally, as a gruff but tender mechanic they pick up along the way (very handy, given the condition of their bus).

In true road movie fashion, the journey is the destination, and while they encounter road trip staples such as pit stops and breakdowns, as well as a serving of mid-90s rural prejudice, they overcome these challenges with brave faces (heavily made up, of course), and what awaits each of them when they arrive is, to me, the miracle of the film.

PRISCILLA brims and fizzes with comic energy and hypnotic visuals from start to finish, with a sharp script and sure-footed but laid-back direction from writer/director Stephan Elliott, a choice soundtrack of 70s disco hits, and of course, those costumes (the Oscar is well-deserved)… but it’s the absolutely committed performances that (at least to me) never teeter into caricature while portraying complex dynamics that sell it. While it is fitfully amusing to see the future Elrond and Detective Ed Exley in drag, the movie genuinely sees and loves these characters and cares about what happens to them. That’s why this affirming film works as well as it does, on as many levels as it does, and why it hasn’t aged a day since its release in 1994, just showing how needed and ahead of its time it really was, and still is.

It’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock and Hoopla, or for free with ads on The Roku Channel, Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Freevee, and Amazon Prime Video with Ads.

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Zach is a proud member of the Minnesota Film Critics Alliance (MNFCA). For more info about Zach, the organization, or to read other great reviews from other great Minnesota-based film critics, click here: https://mnfilmcriticalliance.wordpress.com/