Of all of John Waters’ anarchic and delightfully filthy films, he considered Female Trouble his magnum opus and says it was his favorite film to make with drag superstar and ultimate muse Divine. Female Trouble was Waters’ follow-up to his outrageous midnight movie Pink Flamingos, and follows Divine’s most audacious character, Dawn Davenport, a bratty teenage delinquent who goes on a rampage of crime, depravity and twisted glamour after her parents refuse to get her a pair of cha-cha heels for Christmas. Davenport eventually — spoiler alert — winds up in the electric chair as a convicted murderess. “Crime is beauty,” as the film’s mantra goes, and Waters’ kitschy, tinsel-toned, grotesque descent into mania challenges boundaries between good and bad taste, beauty and filth, crime and innocence, all with a wink and a snarl from Divine. The film will be screened as part of the Belcourt’s Holiday Classics series, an irreverent but nonetheless festive entry to the holiday film canon.
9:15 p.m. Dec. 12 & 16 at the Belcourt
2102 Belcourt Ave.
