Thelma and Louise (1991) * * *

 

Directed by:  Ridley Scott

Starring:  Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon, Brad Pitt, Harvey Keitel, Christopher McDonald, Michael Madsen, Stephen Tobolowsky, Timothy Carhart

Best friends Thelma (Davis) and Louise (Sarandon) get away for a much-needed weekend away from their difficult home and work lives but wind up as criminals on a cross-country run from the law.   Thelma and Louise isn't simply about this physical journey, but how both women are transformed by their crimes and embrace a life they didn't expect to experience.   Parts of Thelma and Louise are formula while others stand out as original slices of life and character development.   

Thelma and Louise endure life as waitresses and more challenging personal lives.  Thelma's husband Darryl (McDonald) is an impossible prick to live with, while Louise's boyfriend Jimmy (Madsen) is a nicer guy, but doesn't want to marry her.  Louise also is a previous victim of rape from when she lived in Texas, and this memory haunts her to the point that when she wants to escape to Mexico, she wants to avoid traveling through the state.  The pair sits down for a night out on the town at a local bar, Thelma gets tipsy and dances all night with a handsome guy who soon attempts to rape her.  Louise, likely triggered by her past rape, shoots the creep dead and flees with Thelma.  

The two don't report the killing to the police because they believe their story of self-defense would be dismissed and Thelma would be blamed for being drunk and amorous with the would-be rapist.   Further events snowball with an Arkansas police detective (Keitel), who empathizes with the pair and doesn't want to see the matter escalate further than it already has.  Along the way, Thelma and Louise meet handsome drifter JD (Pitt-in his breakthrough film role) whose charm and looks seduce Thelma with devastating consequences.   Plus, he brings Thelma sexual joy in ways the insufferable Darryl couldn't even imagine.  

Some sections of Thelma and Louise drag, almost acting as a five-minute break before the action begins rolling again, but Thelma and Louise isn't an action picture, but an elevation of the road/buddy genre.  Davis's Thelma undergoes the most changes as the movie moves on to its famous climax.  When we first meet her, she is so terrified of Darryl that she leaves him a note telling him she's leaving for the weekend.  As Thelma and Louise drive through the Arizona desert, we see a more hardened Thelma looking for trouble, or a reason to unleash her rage on a society that keeps women like her down.   She catches up to where Louise was at the start of the trip: angry, suspicious, and tough.  When she shoots Thelma's rapist, we sense she was looking for an opportunity to use the gun on someone who did to Thelma what was done to her in Texas years ago.  

Callie Khouri's Oscar-winning screenplay, however, doesn't simply turn Thelma and Louise into an anti-male movie because Keitel's Hal genuinely cares about saving the two women before less-sympathetic lawmen catch them.   Even while Thelma and Louise drive off the cliff and into the Grand Canyon as a final middle finger to the men trying to capture them, Hal still tries to save them which, at that point, was from themselves.