The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

• Year: 1994
• Released: 10 Aug 1994
• Country: Australia
• Adwords: Won 1 Oscar. 13 wins & 19 nominations total
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109045/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_adventures_of_priscilla_queen_of_the_desert
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-adventures-of-priscilla-queen-of-the-desert
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, Filipino
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Comedy, Music
• Runtime: 104 min
• Writer: Stephan Elliott
• Director: Stephan Elliott
• Cast: Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, Terence Stamp
• Keywords: musical, cult film, australia, lgbt interest, homophobia,

	7.5/10
	70/100

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert Storyline

Anthony, nicknamed Tick, is a Sydney-based drag queen who performs under the name Mitzi. After he gets hired to perform at a resort in Alice Springs, he invites two people along both for company and to be part of the show. They are fellow drag queen Adam, who performs under the name Felicia, and middle aged transsexual Bernadette, who was born male with the name Ralph, and whose much younger husband has just passed away. Tick believes this trip will be be a distraction for Bernadette, a former “Les Girls” in “his” younger days. This threesome is not a totally cohesive group, with overly boisterous Adam/Felicia being the one who will probably get on the others’ nerves, he only being invited because Felicia does add an extra something to the stage. Adam largely uses his trans status to guilt his mother for money, which is how he is able to buy the highway coach that he names Priscilla, in which the three will travel to Alice Springs. They get into one misadventure after another based on their queer fish out of water status in many of the small outback towns through which they travel, those misadventures for which they not only need to provide support for each other in every sense of the word, but also solidarity. But perhaps more importantly, they help each other with the issues they are facing in their personal lives, Tick’s biggest which are currently waiting for him in Alice Springs.

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The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert Movie Reviews

finally …

Two drag queens (Guy Pearce as bitchy Felicia, and Hugo Weaving as Mitzi) and a transsexual (Terence Stamp, marvellous as the widowed Bernadette) make a trip to Alice Springs in a pink bus called Priscilla.

Cue a soundtrack of mostly Abba songs (plus an off-the-cuff ‘I Will Survive’, and C E Peniston’s ‘Finally’ – a great set-piece) and three towering performances. From the initial hilarious premise we follow the trio through the Australian desert and meet the various inhabitants of places they pass through. It remains fast-paced and touching within the comedy. Wonderful.

Thoroughly Entertaining…

All three leading ladies and their performances are outstanding. The story is very amusing, quite often hilarious but also grounded with the prejudices they encounter on their journey. If you need something to put a smile on your face, to put in perspective your own dilemmas, to distract you from the humdrum of daily life, then jump on Priscilla and let the girls keep you thoroughly entertained.

“Is it true when you were born the doctor turned around and slapped your mother?”

Well, what can one say about ‘Priscilla’? In it’s own way, perhaps even more outrageous than ‘Rocky Horror’ which preceded it by a couple of decades. Even if one were to be put off by the alternative life style, the film is worth watching just for the garish outfits (Oscar Winner for Best Costume Design) and the unpredictable performances. The ‘I Will Survive’ number just about knocked me out of my chair, and the Australian Outback setting offers a glimpse of a ‘Kangaroo Crossing’ sign that made total sense in a picture full of nonsense and decadent fun. I had to laugh when the breakfast cereal of choice during one of the morning stops happened to be Froot Loops; obviously the film makers were not too concerned with political correctness, nor how could they be to even come up with this concept. With key roles in films like “The Matrix” and the Hobbit movies, one of the last actors I would have expected to see in this picture was Hugo Weaving, dragging it up in all his colorful glory. Along side the likes of Terrence Stamp and Guy Pearce, the unlikely trio sends up the gay/transsexual/transgender genre in a way that comes along maybe once a generation. The only possible comment I might make otherwise for this outrageous story might be – Where was Tim Curry when you needed him?