As a filmmaker, Ridley Scott has always been somewhat reticent to embrace the urgency of the contemporary moment. Though he’s never less than competent in terms of form and as a director of actors, Scott remains to this day a genre-driven stylist and a lover of the physical design, cultural symbols, and lingo that characterize a specific era. Scott’s best films (Blade Runner, Alien) called for immense design work, the crafting of vehicles and creatures, and the imagining of a culture far removed from our current standings; Gladiator and The Duellists bloomed largely due to exhaustive detailing and accuracy of historical costume design, if not historical events exactly.
Life in the present boxes Scott in creatively, as he’s in a way required to show us a world we will recognize as the same one that we will see when we exit the theater. That world doesn’t bore Scott necessarily, but it limits him, which is partially what makes A Good Year, G.I. Jane, and White Squall his most neglected works. He’s a natural, dutiful Hollywood filmmaker with a deep love for the transportive power of historical epics, adventure flicks, and action spectacles.
Along with the witty Matchstick Men, Thelma & Louise can be considered a memorable exception to this rule. The story of an unloved housewife and a fed-up waitress who plan a mad-dash to Mexico following the shooting of a would-be rapist is about as ripped-from-the-headlines as it got in 1991, but the vast ocean of red rock formations of the American West, the dusty Americana of the open road, and an old-fashioned on-the-lam tale give Scott plenty to chew on stylistically. For as much as Thelma & Louise is a road movie about two best friends, it’s also a western to its very bone, with plenty of gunplay, hard-drinking, and conflicting notions on outlaw justice to back up that claim, not to mention one smokin’-hot would-be cowboy.
Played by a young, intensely charming Brad Pitt, that would-be cowboy is an overdue escape—the perfect fantasy for a woman whose hubby has more interest in ESPN and a punctual dinner than he has in giving her an orgasm, kissing her, or even taking out the garbage. Such is the life of Thelma (Geena Davis), who slaves in her cluttered abode to appease the bullheaded Darryl (Christopher McDonald), whom she ultimately ditches, without warning, to go out for a girl’s weekend of fishing, drinking, and flirting with her best friend, Louise (Susan Sarandon). A full-time waitress at a local diner with a brooding yet loving fiancé (Michael Madsen), Louise is hesitant to cut loose even before she watches a devious charmer (Timothy Carhart) pick up Thelma at a honky-tonk bar. But when the charmer attempts to rape Thelma in the parking lot and invites Sarandon to suck his dick, the fire-haired Louise is obliged to shoot him dead.
It’s baffling now to comprehend the hubbub that was mounted upon the release of Thelma & Louise, which was derided by a contingency of critics for its violence (there’s very little) and its particular brand of feminism, which thankfully avoids blatant sloganeering but can’t help indulging in a few “how did your mother raise you?” moments. This isn’t to say that Hollywood has grown in any truly meaningful way in terms of offering complex leading roles to females or, for that matter, making more films that deal directly with problems that face women specifically. Strong-willed female leads are more prevalent and popular (Million Dollar Baby, Winter’s Bone, and Qentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill diptych, just to name a few), but they often are about how a woman finds her place in male-dominated hierarchies and often involve a hunt for a man. In short, Thelma & Louise is more radical in the sense that the men in the movie are largely in search of the women and the women are largely ambivalent toward the men.
Then there’s that cowboy the girls pick up not very long after blowing away Carhart and catching the attention of investigator Hal Slocumb, the film’s most sympathetic male character, played wonderfully and against type by Harvey Keitel. Scott and screenwriter Callie Khouri here take the male gaze for a spin, with Scott training his camera on an often-shirtless Pitt, who exudes infinitely more charisma than any cowboy John Wayne ever played. (In contrast, Davis is deglamorized in increments as the film goes on, appearing in a frumpy, cheesy bed gown opposite Pitt’s tanned abs and pectorals.) But this cowboy is also a con man with his eyes set directly on Thelma and an envelope of money that Louise got from her would-be fiancé. Scammed out of their cash, the best friends continue on their way to Mexico by staging hold-ups and wreak endless havoc on any tongue-wagglin’, foul-mouthed hillbilly that crosses their path.
An escape from a male-centric world is what Thelma and Louise are after, but the film is more comfortable as escapist entertainment than it is in thoughtful critique. Scott can’t help but lionize both women, especially Louise, and only intermittently confronts ever-present themes of sexuality with kid gloves. Thelma & Louise is, in this case, not the Molotov cocktail that many perceived it to be, but it remains an immaculately paced entertainment of strong emotions and buoyant humor to this day, with a beautiful, expansive view of the West crafted by Scott and DP Adrian Biddle—a collaboration that proved less fruitful with 1492: Conquest of Paradise.
And Davis and Sarandon, both doing what might prove their liveliest and most personal work, are backed up by a stellar supporting cast, rounded out by Jason Beghe as an unlucky state trooper and Stephen Tobolowsky as Slocumb’s superior. In the realm of popular American cinema, which will more than likely remain fundamentally misogynistic until the lights go out, Thelma & Louise rightly maintains its status as an oddity. But a Catherine Breillat film it is not.
Image/Sound
This new 4K restoration of Thelma & Louis is a triumph of resolution and increased color depth, especially when you take notice of the fine detailing of clothes, low-rent hotels, dilapidated gas stations, and household interiors. The red rock formations, blue skies, and green farmland show off a clarity and impeccable contrast that blow prior home-video editions of the film out of the water. There’s also a fullness to the 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack that serves the film very well. Dialogue is clear and out front throughout, and a perfect balance is struck between the echoing blues-guitar score and the wide-open sounds of the American West.
Extras
Aside from the new interviews with Ridley Scott and Callie Khouri and the inclusion of Scott’s 1965 short film Boy and Bicycle, all the extras on this two-disc set have been ported over from earlier home video editions of Thelma & Louise. Of the two stellar commentary tracks included in the set, the more fascinating one is by Scott, who pontificates on his style and a variety of narrative decisions, while the more entertaining one is by Khouri and actors Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon, all of whom provide candid anecdotes about the production.
There’s also featurette on the inception, production, and reception of the film that’s quite informative. There’s a certain curiosity to the deleted and extended scenes and a five-minute featurette, but they’re ultimately pointless, if not intermittently interesting (look for Catherine Keener as Hal Slocumb’s wife). The same could be said about a storyboard featurette that details the final chase scene. A music video for “Part of You, Part of Me,” the film’s theme song, and a trailer are also included. Finally, the enclosed liner notes contain three thorough and impassioned essays by critics Jessica Kiang and Rachel Syme and journalist Rebecca Traister.
Overall
Thelma & Louise is at once an example of populist genre filmmaking and a legitimately unique rethinking of genre structure, and it receives a stellar A/V makeover from Criterion.
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