Friday Minute
No. 136 | July 23, 2010

Chick Flicks Not Just for Chicks

Our theme this week
Chick flicks—one guy’s take

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Tuesday         —   The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Wednesday    —   Terms of Endearment (1983)
Thursday        —   Erin Brockovich (2000)

Thelma & Louise (1991)

 

If you think that chick flicks too often are about women just looking for guys, then Thelma & Louise is the film for you.  (If you think chick flicks ought to be about women looking for guys, perhaps you should reconsider.)

Thelma (Geena Davis) doesn’t need a guy—she’s got a husband.  She needs him like a hole in the head—he’s a Neanderthal the way he treats women—mostly she needs to get away.  The plan is for Thelma and her friend, Louise (Susan Sarandon), to spend the weekend in the mountains, fishing.  On the way up they stop at a dance hall, and that’s where their fun-filled getaway turns into an entirely different kind of trip.  Thelma is looking to party, has too much to drink, and dances with a guy named Harlan.  He’s trouble.  Louise finds them in the parking lot, where Harlan about to rape Thelma.  Louise pulls out a gun.  ”When a woman is crying like that,” Louise tells him, “she isn’t having any fun.”  Next thing, Harlan has a bullet in him and the two women speed away in Louise’s car, fugitives from the law.

The two of them head toward Mexico—the long way.  Louise has some history with Texas and won’t ever step foot in it again.  They meet a hitchhiking cowboy named J.D. (Brad Pitt, in a small but star-making role), who teaches Thelma a few tricks of the criminal trade, then beds her, before taking off with their cash.  Their funds low, police on their tail, the two women get back on the highway, the odds stacked against them.  It’s just Thelma and Louise and their dirty old T-Bird, speeding to the end of their fateful journey.

Thelma & Louise is not a typical film about women.  It offers a better look at female friendship than many pictures out of Hollywood, and it doesn’t offer a whitewashed view of how women are sometimes treated in our society.  The movie offers no easy answers, and it doesn’t pull its punches.  It’s one of those rare films that gets everything just right.  Its two lead characters seem destined to live on in our collective imaginations long after our time.

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Thelma & Louise (1991)
Ridley Scott, director
Callie Khouri, writer
Trailer
 

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Thelma & Louise (1991)
Geena Davis, Brad Pitt, Susan Sarandon, Michael Madsen

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Quote of Note
“You finally got laid properly.  I’m so proud.”
—Louise Sawyer (Susan Sarandon), Thelma & Louise (1991)

…58…59…60.