Thelma & Louise is a 1991 American drama film, written by Callie Khouri and directed by Ridley Scott. It stars Geena Davis as Thelma and Susan Sarandon as Louise, two friends who embark on a road trip with disastrous consequences. It also stars Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen and Brad Pitt (in his major motion picture debut) in supporting roles.
The film became a critical and commercial success, receiving six Academy Award nominations and winning one for Best Original Screenplay (Khouri). Both Sarandon and Davis were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Plot
Two friends, Thelma Dickinson (Geena Davis) and Louise Sawyer (Susan Sarandon), set out for a two-day vacation to take a break from their dreary lives. Thelma is married to a controlling man, Darryl (Christopher McDonald), while Louise works as a waitress in a diner, and is dating a musician who spends most of his time on the road. They head out in Louise's 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible, but their vacation in the mountains quickly turns into a nightmare before they reach their destination.
They stop for a drink at a roadhouse, where Thelma meets and dances with Harlan Puckett (Timothy Carhart). After she gets drunk, Harlan attempts to rape her in the parking lot. Louise finds them and threatens to shoot Harlan with a gun that Thelma brought with her. Harlan stops, but as the women walk away, he yells profanity and insults them. Louise loses her temper and fires, killing him. Thelma wants to go to the police, but Louise says that because Thelma was drunk and had been dancing with Harlan, no one will believe her claim of attempted rape. Afraid that she will be prosecuted, Louise decides to go on the run and Thelma accompanies her.
Louise is determined to travel from Oklahoma to Mexico, but refuses to go through Texas. It is revealed that something happened to her in Texas years earlier, but she refuses to say exactly what. Heading west, they come across an attractive young man named J.D. (Brad Pitt), and Thelma convinces Louise to let him hitch a ride with them. Louise contacts her boyfriend Jimmy Lennox (Michael Madsen) and asks him to wire transfer her life savings to her. When she goes to pick up the money, she finds that Jimmy has come to see her to deliver the money in person. Thelma invites J.D. into her room and learns he is a thief who has broken parole. They sleep together, and J.D. describes how he conducted his hold-ups. At the same time, Jimmy asks Louise to marry him, but she declines.
In the morning, Thelma tells Louise about her night with J.D. When they return to the motel room, they discover J.D. has taken Louise's life savings and fled. Louise is distraught and frozen with indecision, so a guilty Thelma takes charge and robs a convenience store using the tactics she learned from listening to J.D. Meanwhile, the FBI are getting closer to catching the fugitives, after questioning J.D. and Jimmy, and tapping the phone line at Darryl's house. Detective Hal Slocumb (Harvey Keitel) discovers the traumatic event that Louise experienced years earlier in Texas. During a couple of brief phone conversations with her, he expresses sympathy for her predicament and pledges to protect her, but he is unsuccessful in his attempts to persuade her to surrender.
When they are pulled over by a state trooper (Jason Beghe), Thelma holds him at gunpoint and locks him in the trunk of his car, while Louise takes his gun and ammunition. They then encounter a truck driver (Marco St. John) who repeatedly makes obscene gestures at them. They pull over to demand an apology, but when he refuses, they fire at the fuel-tanker he is driving, causing it to explode. Leaving the man furious, they drive off.
Thelma and Louise are finally cornered by the authorities only 100 yards from the edge of the Grand Canyon. Hal arrives on the scene, but he is refused the chance to make one last attempt to talk the women into surrendering themselves. Rather than be captured and spend the rest of their lives in jail, Thelma proposes that they "keep going" (over the cliff). Louise asks Thelma if she is certain. Thelma says yes, they kiss, and Louise steps on the accelerator. As soon as the car starts forward, Hal sprints after it in an attempt to save them, but the car zooms over the cliff.
Cast
- Susan Sarandon as Louise Elizabeth Sawyer
- Geena Davis as Thelma Yvonne Dickinson
- Harvey Keitel as Detective Hal Slocumb
- Michael Madsen as Jimmy Lennox
- Christopher McDonald as Darryl Dickinson
- Stephen Tobolowsky as Max
- Brad Pitt as J.D.
- Timothy Carhart as Harlan Puckett
- Jason Beghe as State Trooper
- Marco St. John as Truck Driver
Production
Although the setting for the film is a fictional route between Arkansas and the Grand Canyon, the movie was filmed almost entirely in the states of California and Utah. The primary filming locations for the movie are rural areas around Bakersfield, California and Moab, Utah. The Grand Canyon scenes were actually filmed just south of Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah.
Reception
General
The film was a critical success. Metacritic lists a composite critical score of 88 out of 100. Rotten Tomatoes rates Thelma & Louise 83% "Fresh". Janet Maslin of The New York Times had only praise for the film in her review: "Mr. Scott's Thelma and Louise, with a sparkling screenplay by the first-time writer Callie Khouri, is a surprise on this and many other scores. It reveals the previously untapped talent of Mr. Scott (best known for majestically moody action films like Alien, Blade Runner and Black Rain) for exuberant comedy, and for vibrant American imagery, notwithstanding his English roots. It reimagines the buddy film with such freshness and vigor that the genre seems positively new. It discovers unexpected resources in both its stars, Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, who are perfectly teamed as the spirited and original title characters." Roger Ebert also praises the film, but withholds a perfect score on the basis of "the last shot before the titles begin. It's a freeze frame that fades to white, which is fine, except it does so with unseemly haste... It's unsettling to get involved in a movie that takes 128 minutes to bring you to a payoff that the filmmakers seem to fear."
The film was screened out of competition at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. After watching the film, singer-songwriter Tori Amos wrote "Me and a Gun", the story of her rape six years earlier, which she had told no one about before watching this film. Affected by a scene in the movie, Amos began sobbing publicly in a crowded movie theater and writing the lyrics to the song in her head.
Argentinian singer and musician Fito Páez wrote a hit song called "Dos dÃas en la vida" ("Two days in one lifetime") after watching this movie. The lyrics tell the story of the main characters, with verses played by singers Fabiana Cantilo (in the role of Thelma) and Celeste Carballo (Louise). It was one of the most successful singles from his 1992 album "El amor después del amor".
The final scene, where the two embrace each other before driving off a cliff, has become an iconic scene. Numerous homages and parodies of this scene have appeared through the years, including alternate movie endings, cartoon parodies, video game "Easter Eggs", and as a tragic ending to television series, music videos and commercials.
The film also received significant criticism from those who thought it was misandrist and that its depictions of men were unfairly negative.
Feminism
Numerous critics and writers have remarked on the feminist overtones of Thelma & Louise. Film critic B. Ruby Rich praises the film as an uncompromising validation of women's experiences, while Kenneth Turan calls it a "neo-feminist road movie". In her essay "The Daughters of Thelma and Louise", Jessica Enevold argues that the movie constitutes "an attack on conventional patterns of chauvinist male behavior toward females". In addition, it "exposes the traditional stereotyping of male-female relationships" while rescripting the typical gender roles of the road movie genre.
However, in her review for The Los Angeles Times, film critic Sheila Benson objects to the characterization of the film as feminist, arguing that it is more preoccupied with revenge and violence than feminist values.
In an article commemorating the film's 20th anniversary in 2011, Raina Lipsitz called it "the last great film about women" and said that it heralded the achievements of women that caused 1992 to become "the year of the woman". However, she also claimed that women-themed films have since been losing ground, and rarely even pass the Bechdel test.
Awards and honors
Khouri won an Academy Award for Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen; Scott, Davis, Sarandon, cinematographer Adrian Biddle, and film editor Thom Noble were nominated for Oscars.
The British Film Institute published a book about the film in 2000, as part of a Modern Classics series. On the Writers Guild of America Award's 101 Best Screenplays List it made No. 72. The film was ranked on the Australian program 20 to 1, in the episode Magnificent Movie Moments.
American Film Institute lists
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies â€" Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills â€" #76
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains: Thelma Dickinson & Louise Sawyer â€" #24 Heroes
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers â€" #78
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) â€" Nominated
Soundtrack
Pete Haycock on slide guitar contributed to Thunderbird, the theme music for the film. In addition to Glenn Frey's "Part of Me, Part of You", which became the film's primary theme song, the soundtrack included songs by Chris Whitley, Martha Reeves, Toni Childs, Marianne Faithfull, Charlie Sexton, Grayson Hugh, B.B. King, and Michael McDonald.
References
Further reading
- Fournier, Gina. Thelma & Louise and Women in Hollywood. McFarland & Co., Inc. Publishers, 2007
- Cook, Bernie, editor. Thelma & Louise Live! The Cultural Afterlife of an American Film, The University of Texas Press, 2007
External links
- Official website
- Thelma & Louise at the Internet Movie Database
- Thelma & Louise at AllMovie
- Thelma & Louise at the TCM Movie Database
- Thelma & Louise at Rotten Tomatoes
- Thelma & Louise at Box Office Mojo
- Thelma & Louise at The Numbers
- Thelma and Louise - Original Trailer on YouTube