Highway of Heartache
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Highway of Heartache is a 1994 feature film that was billed as the first Canadian country-western drag queen musical. Written and directed by Gregory Wild, the film follows the misadventures of Wynona-Sue Turnpike (Barbara Chamberlin, who also write the film’s score) on a raucous and unlikely road to Nashville superstardom. Backed up by a pair of transvestite guardian angels (played by The Big Wigs), Wynona-Sue faces a variety of indignities including an abusive husband, the threat of life imprisonment and venereal disease. The film’s humor ranged from gross-out to surreal (the heroine’s gynecologist was an Elvis Presley imitator), and the entire film was shot on Day-Glo sets designed and built by Wild. [1]
Highway of Heartache was made in 1994 and had its theatrical premiere in New York in August 1996. Critical reaction was mixed: Stephen Holden in the New York Times complained of a “gratingly hysterical pitch [that] makes a John Waters romp look like a Merchant-Ivory reverie…what began as a screaming Day-Glo comedy turns into a sensory endurance test.” [2] However, Ken Eisner of Variety dubbed it “the weirdest feature yet to come out of Canada” and “consistently funny” [3] and Sandra Brennan in All Movie Guide stated the “weird and funny Canadian film has all the makings of a cult classic.” [4]
Highway of Heartache was released on VHS video in 1999 [5], but to date it has not been released on DVD. This is the only feature film credited to Gregory Wild as a director and writer.
