_Thelma and Louise_

                    reviewed by Cynthia Fuchs



     On the face of it, the concept of a women's buddy/road movie
seems retro and irrelevant. Why emulate a formula so familiar and
so fraught with reprehensible politics? It's sort of like
becoming a Marine to declare equality with the guys. Why join up
when it's the system itself that's invidious? 

     Against such odds, Ridley Scott's _Thelma and Louise_
goes some distance toward rewriting the cliches of cinematic
outlaw-heroism in the male mode. It might seem somewhat of a
departure for Scott, well-known for neo-existentialist texts like
_Alien_, _Blade Runner_, and _Black Rain_. For
compared to these claustrophobic meditations on the meaning of
humanity, _Thelma and Louise_ is fairly exhilarated, grinding
its gears from charming to outrageous to utterly predictable. 

     Callie Khouri's script has a diehard romanticism reminiscent
of _Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid_. Against the
background of the ever-photographable Southwest American desert,
Louise (the divine Susan Sarandon) and Thelma (Geena Davis) find
themselves on the run from the Law, in this case husbands,
lovers, and cops. Onto this rather basic framework Scott drapes
his usual stylish imagery: neon lights, rainy streets, and
provocative widescreen close-ups. All this makes the view from
Louise's '66 Thunderbird convertible rather ominous.

     Indeed, contrary to the trailer's giddy promise of good ole
gals out on a spree, the movie quickly turns dark and desperate.
Small town waitress Louise (she calls customers "honey'') and
beleaguered housewife Thelma (alone in her kitchen, she sneaks
bites of a frozen Three Musketeers) take off for a weekend of
mountain fishing. They stop at a roadside dive, where the naive
Thelma (who's been with neanderthal husband Darryl since she was
14) drinks and dances too much with a local scuzball, who then
assaults her in the parking lot. 

     That Louise stops the rape with a gun turns the action
around. Even as the audience cheers her, however, it's clear that
the murder only sets the stage for later no-win encounters with
other yahoos: they're foul, egotistical, and mulish grotesques,
the kind of stereotypical boors who populate women's nightmare
mindscapes. The startling appearance of a Rasta bicyclist,
complete with a cigar-sized reefer, alleviates this onslaught of
white brutes. He's oblivious and rather obvious comic relief, but
what a strange sight he is in this movie. Thelma and Louise,
trapped in their own apocalyptic helix, never see him, yet the
brief respite he provides for us seems costly; that is, the film
seems unable to address race in as clearly progressive-minded way
as it does gender politics.

     The FBI agents, who take up the chase after the murder, are
also recycled cut-outs, suits with attitudes (though they watch
Cary Grant movies during downtime). The exception is Harvey
Keitel--of all people--as a cop with a semblance of a heart and
some sympathy for what he calls these "poor girls.'' It should
come as no surprise that his compassion is continually lost in
the shuffle of pasty out-of-towners with wiretaps and lots of
guns. 

     As liaison between Louise and the Law, Keitel can afford to
be impotent in ways that the women cannot. Their "freedom'' is
limited to private celebratory moments: they whoop along with the
car radio or notice some guy's "cute ass.'' It's them-against-
the-world, but since the world here is overwhelmingly male and
high-teched, there's never any contest, only speeding along the
road to an inevitable and gorgeous New Mexican nowhere. Pretty to
think so. Erratic and impassioned, this is a journey into
diminishing options. Recurring shots of the terminally loutish
Darryl and the specter of Louise's secret past (hint: it involves
the legal system's failure to protect abused women) insure that
the women can never go back. 

     In the midst of all this predetermined delirium, there are
moments of subtle, and miss-able, insight. When Thelma robs a
convenience store, it seems the plot is thudding into the
expected. But a fast cut to the feds watching the videotape gives
her screwballish performance a resounding context: an audience of
men who can't believe a woman could do such a thing, an audience
short on imagination and energy. 

     As if to rebuke this potential audience, the movie offers
some supercharged images, as when a hot, sweaty, dirty, and fed-
up Louise and Thelma take on a particularly lecherous trucker: he
makes rude tongue gestures from his cab and they encourage him to
pull over. They then shoot his shiny tanker to hell, the camera
covering multiple angles: from behind the angry women to an
aerial spectacular. He has no recourse and deems them "Bitches
from hell!'' While the repeated image of his exploding vehicle
seems like overkill, it's also strangely satisfying, in that
retro-road movie kind of way. 


Cynthia Fuchs teaches film and media studies at George Mason University.

Copyright by Cynthia Fuchs.  All rights reserved.
Please do not reprint this review without the permission of the author.

This review originally appeared in the Philadelphia _City Paper_.