Something for everyone! Desperate Remedies is an insanely campy bodice-ripper about a turn-of-the-century lipstick lesbian and the ridiculously handsome men who seek to defame her. In the dispiriting New Zealand harbor town of Hope, Dorothea Brook (Jennifer Ward-Lealand), a draper of distinction, enjoys a discreet life with her, ahem, companion Anne (Lisa Chappell). But things are turned upside down with the arrival of hairy-chested immigrant Lawrence (Kevin Smith).

Dorothea wants Lawrence to marry her opium-addled sister Rose (Kiri Mills); Rose wants to marry flamboyant queen Fraser (Cliff Curtis); Lawrence wants to devour Dorothea, who's in love with Anne; Anne wants Dorothea to enter a marriage of convenience with a sleazy local politician. Life in Hope is starting to seem more exciting than a week in San Francisco.

Orlando on acid, Querelle cross-dressed by Barbarella, Vogue meets Queen Christina... It's very easy to get excited about Desperate Remedies; the film positively inspires giddiness. Plot points aside, Remedies is driven by a rampantly operatic score, eye-popping color, and a generous, demented gay sensibility. A tale of lesbian triumph, peopled by Playgirl pin-ups, and directed by New Zealand's most important gay filmmakers (Stewart Main and Peter Wells made the far more serious Death in the Family, which we screened in 1987), Desperate Remedies is the perfect way to mark the end of Lesbian & Gay Freedom Day.