Thelma and Louise are best friends who sneak off on a weekend getaway. Louise is a witty waitress and Thelma is a reclusive housewife (trapped by her controlling husband). The pair stop driving for rest and for drinks, and Thelma enjoys a few dances with a local flirt, Harlan. But things turn brutal when Harlan takes Thelma outside and starts to rape her. Louise gets there and stops the assault with a revolver. When the two women begin to leave, Harlan starts mouthing off at them and in a split-moment decision, Louise shoots him square in the chest. From here, the film pivots—our buddy road trip movie is now a getaway flick. Our two friends come to grips with the murder, hastily lay out a plan, a begin to make a break for Mexico (the long-way ‘round, hoping to avoid Texas). But as they run out of people to trust and the cops begin to close in on them, the pair are forced to make more rash, criminal decisions. The two find themselves on a plateau before a massive gorge, surrounded by the FBI and out of options. *cue famous ending*
I joke, but only thing I knew about this film was its famous ending, by way of the countless parodies I’ve seen of it. In the actual film, the decision carried emotion and meaning, and cemented the film’s “bad things happening to good people” style of tragedy. I struggle with freeze-frame endings, but I’ll give this one a pass.
Beyond the ending, I really enjoyed this film. It’s a modern, western, buddy flick, cut from the same cloth as “Bonnie and Clyde” or “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”. And while during those two films, you find yourself rooting for the criminal duos because they’re super charming, in this film, Thelma and Louise are both charming and underdogs. This film lays out every way men have mistreated them and screwed up their lives, painting them in a corner where they’ve realized their lost trust in patriarchal systems and must take their fate into their own hands. And while Louise is the metaphorical and literal driver in this story, Thelma is the character who really transforms and self-actualizes—first with a man on her terms, and then without men altogether.
To call out a few last thoughts: Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were absolutely terrific. The film brilliantly meshes a few different genres, but the one that I bumped into was “Michael Bay action”—scenes with an oil taker explosion and cop cars flipping felt unnecessary and broke up the character drama. Still, Callie Khouri’s script was a brilliant balancing act of character arcs. And, I hate to finish my review on this landmark feminist film by praising its male director, but c’mon: Ridley Scott! I continue to be impressed by the breadth of film genres he can navigate, and the ability of a English man to (generally) depict different characters with honesty and drive.