THE THANK YOU GIRLS (Charliebebs Gohetia) Rating: N
In this entry from the Philippines, six drag queens travel all over the country in a rickety bus, competing in – and losing – one gay beauty pageant after another.
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Sound repetitious? You don’t know the half of it. Director Charliebebs Gohetia loops one conversation so it unfolds after every pageant disaster. But instead of being a heady comment on the rote nature of the experience (the judges always ask the same questions), it becomes confusing and then simply dull.
The contestants’ attempts to make the bus beautiful by painting it and letting their colourful scarves stream in the wind reveal more about the art of rip-off than any real creativity. Gohetia’s obviously paying homage to Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, but it just comes across as a sad steal.
And there’s zero tension, either among the beauty queens or, save for one brief situation, between the queens and the homophobes. And why not give us some pointed content about the always fascinating process men in drag go through to make themselves look spectacular?
This is the kind of flick even Inside Out would turn down.
Screens at the Revue Saturday and Sunday (June 5 and 6).
