Polyester 1981

Francine Fishpaw, Divine, is an overweight housewife living in a comfortable suburban Baltimore home. As her upper-middle-class family spirals, she watches the steady ground beneath them loosen: her husband Elmer Fishpaw, Tab Hunter, a polyester-clad lout who runs an adult movie theater, becomes a magnet for anti-pornography protesters who swarm the Fishpaws’ yard. Francine’s strict Christian beliefs clash with the escalating chaos around her, especially as her teenagers push in directions she never intended: Lu-Lu, a spoiled and promiscuous daughter, and Dexter, a delinquent son who derives a disturbing pleasure from stomping on women’s feet.

Her world further fractures under the weight of her cocaine-snorting mother, La Rue, a sharp-tongued class snob who never misses a chance to belittle her daughter. La Rue compounds Francine’s misery by robbing her blind, openly ridiculing her obesity, and berating her for befriending Cuddles Kovinsky, a simple-minded woman who tries to cheer Francine with a carefree, seize-the-day philosophy and has inherited a sizable fortune from a wealthy former employer. The fragile balance inside the Fishpaw house is shattered when Francine discovers Elmer’s affair with his secretary, Sandra Sullivan, forcing a confrontation that ends with a demand for a divorce. The news drives Francine toward alcoholism and deepening depression, intensifying the stress on her already strained family.

The pressures mount as Lu-Lu discovers she is pregnant to a degenerate boyfriend, Bo-Bo Belsinger, and announces she intends to have an abortion. Dexter’s trouble comes to a head when he’s arrested at a supermarket for stomping on a woman’s foot, and the media hails him as the infamous “Baltimore Foot Stomper.” Lu-Lu’s journey takes her to an abortion clinic where harassment from anti-abortion picketers intensifies; after returning home, she tries to induce a miscarriage, prompting Francine to place her in a Catholic unwed mothers’ home for protection.

On Halloween, Bo-Bo and his accomplice descend on the Fishpaw house to cause damage, and in a violent turn, they shoot La Rue. She fights back, retrieving the gun and killing Bo-Bo in a brutal return of fire. Lu-Lu, distraught and feeling abandoned, flees the unwed mothers’ home and returns to find Bo-Bo’s corpse waiting for her, an event that triggers a suicide attempt herself. Francine faints at the sight, and the family dog Bonkers appears to hang himself, seemingly by a note left near the animal’s body, reinforcing the sense of a family pushed to the edge.

Dexter, now rehabilitated after time in jail, steps into a surprising new life as an artist who crafts paintings of feet, while Lu-Lu evolves into a flower child who embraces macramé and a freer, more artistic outlook. Francine begins to regain control: she quits drinking, confronts her mother with a firmer stance, and finds a renewed romance with Todd Tomorrow, the operator of an art-house drive-in theater. Todd’s ardor seems like a fresh start, and he proposes marriage, filling Francine with relief and happiness—until she uncovers that Todd and La Rue are romantically involved and scheming to siphon off her divorce settlement, drive her insane, and traffic her children into prostitution.

Desperate to protect her family, Francine’s world reaches a boiling point as Elmer and Sandra break into the house with deadly intent. In a final, chaotic turn, Dexter and Lu-Lu turn the tables: Dexter, using his foot-stomping talent, causes Sandra to shoot Elmer accidentally, while Lu-Lu’s macramé skills enable her to strangle Sandra. Cuddles Kovinsky arrives with her German chauffeur/fiancé Heintz, and in a moment of shocking violence, their car runs over La Rue and Todd, killing them both. In the end, Francine’s bond with her children solidifies as they stand together, closing a chapter marked by outrage, resilience, and the redemptive power of family.