| Die,
Mommie, Die (2003) Take what Todd Haynes did for Sirkian melodrama with "Far From Heaven," add a generous dollop of campy humor, throw in a drag queen in full effect and you've got "Die, Mommie, Die." That recipe seems the obvious choice for drag artist Charles Busch who just a couple of years ago harkened back to the late 50's and early 60's "Beach" movies and "Gidget" films with the hilarious lampoon "Psycho Beach Party." Busch amps up his campy brand of humor here to spoof 50's melodrama, like those fabulous soft-focus films of Douglas Sirk, and in doing so creates a hilarious and delightful comedy that harkens back to those kitschy classics with as much warmth as mockery. Busch, looking like a crazy cross between Jane Wyman, Eve Arden and, well, a drag queen, plays the aptly named Angela Arden, a former pop singer whose marriage and career are on the rocks, as are her afternoon cocktails. Angela is trapped in a loveless marriage to Sol (Phillip Baker Hall) so she turns to her frisky young paramour, Tony, played with perfect Tab Hunter-esque smoldering sexiness by Jason Preistly. Meanwhile, Angela must also contend with a daddy's girl daughter (Natasha Lyonne) and a pot-head gay son. Now, I've seen a lot of films and I've seen a lot of cute boys in films. And I've seen a lot of cute boys play gay characters in films. But no one has ever been as stunning and as adorable as Stark Sands as the son, Lance, is here. Imagine if Michelangelo lived on Venice Beach in the 70's and got to sculpt a living demigod for the next YMCA video and you've got an idea of just how irresistible Stark Sands is. This boy is more than hot, he is incendiary. Never mind the fact the he can act with as much fake melodrama and hilarious camp as anyone this side of Hollywood Boulevard, Sands is a pin-up boy come to life, a real life boy whose every image will make you shiver in appreciation. Watching him at work in this film is like watching a golden sunset on a cool spring day. He is jaw-dropping gorgeous. He is Adonis incarnate. And he gets to play a great gay character! That's just awesome! I would have thought that John Waters' hilarious and perverse "Polyester" would have rendered a film like "Die, Mommie, Die" repetitious and obsolete. After all, when it was made in 1981, Waters made no secret that his film was also a homage of Sirk. And while Busch is certainly no Divine, their massive differences only aid in making this film it's own unique entry into the sub- sub-genre of campy tribute films. Here Busch essays the underappreciated suburban women of all those 50's films not with bombast and unglamorous whimpering of Divine but rather the strength and hyper-glamour of a modern day drag queen. |
Busch's model is much
more a homage to the sort of woman that permeated films of that era than
the parody that Divine offered up. To be sure, both caricatures have
their own unique, inherent joys, but Busch's version is softer, more
subtle and more ambitious in representation (while also somehow being
more fierce and more stoic). Whereas Divine was like the bad train-wreck
aftereffects of a acid trip gone horribly wrong, Busch is no less
unappealing than a glass of moderately priced champagne. Screenplay by Busch based on his stage play (which oddly had the title
spelled "Mommy"). Produced by Anthony Edward's production company. Busch won a "Special Jury Prize" for "Outstanding Dramatic Performance"
when the film premiered at Sundance 2003. Sundance Films also picked up |