Desperate Living (1990)

Mole is in the queue for reassignment You'd have to be pretty desperate to watch this terrible, gross and aimless film from John Waters. The main part of the plot follows the inhabitants of Mortville, a squatters' camp ruled by a queen who somehow imposes her absolute power on them. One of them is Mole, played by Susan McHenry. Mole is a female-to-male transsexual. Frustrated by his lover's comments about not being a real man, Mole goes along to a sex reassignment clinic. Being in third place in the queue, [middle in the picture] Mole pulls a knife and forces the physician to perform the operation there and then. Luckily he has some instruments on his desk so he does so, giving Mole a fully functioning willy.

Mole goes back to Mortville, and demonstrates his new equipment, but his girlfriend doesn't like it, preferring him the way he was. So he cuts it off with a pair of scissors, and it is thrown out of the window, where a dog eats it.

This is an awful, incoherent film, with poor acting and direction, and should only be watched if you are sure you enjoy grossness.

HF January 2003



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